All Isn't Well
by Ocean of Dreams
Summary: AU picks up after Snakehead. After an assassination attempt he's off to China with a bitter new MI6 recruit out for revenge. How does this affect his life, and who are these people? Is happiness possible for people like him? M for late chapters ONLY
1. Chapter 1

**Just an idea I had. Continue…? Oh, and I'm not British, so I apologize for any mistakes.**

**Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is not mine.**

The teenaged girl brushed her dark hair out of her eyes and sighed. Hefting the sniper in her hands, she took aim. _Standing on the porch for no good reason. Idiot. _And then she caught sight of his eyes. _Wait. He's supposed to be 14? Wow. Life's been hard for him…_

But she couldn't seem to take aim with the gun and shoot him. _You have to do it! Otherwise they'll kill you! You need to shoot…I won't. I'll turn them in to the CIA or MI6. I…I can't do this anymore._

She hesitated, and lowered the sniper for a second. _No. they're watching me. I'd better shoot…_

The girl took aim and fired.

--

Alex's head whipped around as the bullet smashed into the red brick of his home. _What the hell was that!?_ Then he traced the bullet's path with his eyes towards where the girl had been. Alex's eyes narrowed and he went in to call a cab. MI6 was going to know about this.

_Meanwhile…_

Kristen dashed down the stairs and paused to catch her breath. The sniper was securely in her purse. When she walked out of the posh apartments, nodding to the clerk as she went, Kristen was just another teenager; aged 15.

Kristen waved her hand and a taxi pulled up, and she requested she go downtown. _I know they'd kill me; I'm going to MI6 headquarters and I didn't kill Rider. Shit._

"Oh yes and Mr…?"

"Call me Charlie," the cab driver said gruffly.

"We better get going fast."

"Whatever you say."

He dropped her off about ten minutes later in front of the 'Bank'.

"That'll be 7 pounds miss," the cab driver said, holding out his hand.

Kristen shuffled in her purse, careful to avoid the sniper as she pulled out ten pounds.

"Keep the change," she said, and walked into the building.

Minutes later, Alex Rider paid for the ride and entered the building. The clerk recognized him and nodded and he was let through. After he rose through the elevator to the seventh floor, someone ran into him. Mrs. Jones.

"Alex what brings you here?" she asked cautiously, surveying him.

"Someone just tried to kill me," he answered.

At once Mrs. Jones was alarmed. "Do you know who it was? Why?"

"I have no clue-"

A man in a dark suit interrupted.

"So sorry to interrupt, but Tulip, Alex, there's someone I feel you should meet."

"Who?" Alex asked, flicking his eyes behind the dark suited man.

Alan Blunt smiled grimly. "You'll see."

The three of them walked briskly along and stopped in front of Blunt's office. He took out a key and opened it, shooing them inside. Seated in front of a handsome desk, Kristen turned around and smiled.

Alex mentally gasped.

"It was you!"

She smiled. "Me."

"Yes! It was! I saw you walk out of the building across the street! You nearly killed me!"

Kristen's eyes narrowed. "If I really wanted to kill you, I wouldn't have missed the first time. If I'd really wanted to kill you, I'd have shot again. But I didn't."

"Alex, Kristen here was under blackmail by the Chinese triads. Not blackmail. If she didn't do as she said, they'd shoot her. She has been…very _useful_ to the triads…she has-"

"Spied on Russia, staked out a Taiwanese factory, planted a bomb in Vietnam…" Kristen interrupted.

"She's around your age Alex," Alan Blunt addressed him.

Mrs. Jones finally reacted. "Why was she sent to kill Alex!? Why is she here now?! Who is she working for?!"

Blunt grimaced. "The triads still have a grudge against Alex for humiliating their men. Or so Kristen tells me. She was sent here to kill Alex…only she decided not to. She's being watched Tulip. Born ABC in America, with an American passport, has family in Taiwan…she was visiting China when they found her. Decided she'd be useful, and with an American passport she can go almost anywhere in the world."

"Unfortunately…" Kristen muttered.

"So why didn't she go to the CIA? Or the Taiwanese secret agency?" Alex interrupted.

"Because she was stuck in China. The triads had hold of her and sent her to do some jobs."

"Then why didn't she try and escape then?" Mrs. Jones asked.

Kristen sighed. "You might be determined to hate me; but I only tried to escape here because Great Britain is possibly the United States' most powerful and trusting ally. If I could get this far, I could guarantee a safe way back to the US."

Mr. Blunt coughed slightly.

"Yes?" Mrs. Jones snapped at him.

"I think…we could use Kristen to get into China again. With Alex."

"What!?" Alex yelped.

Kristen gave him a look. "Thanks," she muttered dryly.

"Well we need to watch the Triads, and Kristen would be perfect for that; she's Chinese."

"I didn't fulfill my mission. They'll just kill me!" Kristen's eyes were now boring holes in Blunts'. He coughed again.

"Well, we'll stage a death. Have the local newspapers say a boy has died from poisoning, and I think one did die, right around here, of drug abuse. We can put a photo of Alex in the paper; the triad man is bound to read it."

"If you think it'll work," Kristen seemed doubtful. "I have nothing to lose anyways."

"Alex?" Mrs. Jones asked.

"Why do I have to go then!? I'm not Chinese or anything! And they'd recognize me a mile away!"  
"Alex…" Mr. Blunt pulled him outside.

"Yeah?"

"We need you to go you know, as a backup person; if she's killed or betrays us. We need information on the triads." He led Alex back inside.

"And if you two go together...I don't know. It's more natural than a child and an adult. And I know, you'll say you two look nothing like each other. You'll just sit next to each other on the plane; pretend you don't know each other. Oh…but you'll be living in an MI6 controlled hotel. At least the top floor. All the staff is our men; you'll be safe. And you'll have adjourning rooms."

"Fine." Alex muttered.

"I assure you, the CIA will hear of this Kristen," Blunt tried to assure her.

"As long as they believe us…we won't be killed."

--

The two of them were standing in front of Smithers, impatiently waiting for him to continue.

"Alex, this truly is good fun! And now you have another 14 year old with you! A girl! This has been very interesting, very interesting indeed. Thinking up these inventions! There's no better fun. Anyways, you have the expanding gum you have used before, a cell phone with the drugged dart, hit 9 three times, I guarantee you'll make use of it; the Triads are a nasty piece of work. You also have an exploding watch; click reset three times and get out of where ever you are in ten seconds. Oh, you also have an I-pod. Whatever you young people call it these days. It'll allow you to eavesdrop, very useful. That's all for you Alex. Now, Ms. Chang…A lipstick."

Kristen threw him a surprised look. "I don't use make up."

"Ah, but this lipstick…don't touch it. It's acid; it'll burn through anything. Swivel the product up, and use it to smear on anything. It'll eat right through."

"What color did you make it?" she asked sarcastically.

"Pink. And another, a mirror compact."

"Why do you think I'd carry around make up?"

"Because, that's what 14 year old girls think about. Anyways, this is a scanner. There's actual make up powder in here, so it'll look convincing. You pop out the mirror, like so," he demonstrated, "And it has a mini computer screen. Press this blue button and pass it over the object; it'll sense anything electronic."

She raised an eyebrow. "And this won't be detected by security? Both airports and the Triads?"

"It won't. Now, you also have earrings and a bracelet. I gather you have pierced ears?"

"Yes."

"Good. These are explodable earrings. Take them out and take off the backing, if you don't put it on within ten seconds it'll blow up. You have two of those."

"Are they tacky?" she asked, giving him a measured look.

"Sterling silver. They won't be noticeable. The bracelet is part of the set, it's a tracking device. You would press the middle jewel, fake by the way, three times and MI6 will have a tracking of you. If you are captured, this will be taken away from you so hit the right jewel. You also will have a pen, flashlight in there. If you pass the light over anything it'll be save onto a memory device and sent into MI6 headquarters."

"Now," his gaze bored into Alex's eyes, "You will not be separated while investigating, unless Kristen is reporting for the Triads. And that's all."

--

In time for the evening newspaper, MI6 sent out a man, acting as a newsboy. He had copies of the fake newspaper, toting Alex's death. MI6 had procured the Triad man's position, and sent Wolf acting the newsboy. He walked casually by an alleyway, then glanced up as though something had caught his eye. A Chinese man of about 32 stepped forward.

"Oh, 'ello mista. Wus jus' sellin' the evenin' news, wouldja like one? Only a pound," Wolf dropped into a street voice.

The man spoke in a cultured, accented voice. "Thank you," Wolf fumbled for the paper while the man fished for a bank note.

Wolf dropped the paper in the man's hand and was preparing to walk away when the man called out.

"Wait, this death…"

Wolf nodded solemnly. "Yep. One of ours. I knews him. Rather….odd in the head. Died. Just over there," he pointed wildly with his finger. "Dunno how. Poisons wut' the guv'nor and them be sayin'."

The man looked pleased. "Thank you."

"And you."

Wolf walked away, but as soon as he was out of ear shot he dashed away into MI6 HQ.

"Mission complete."

**Yes, another completely random idea. Should this be a oneshot…or a story?**


	2. Chapter 2

**OMG I'm so sorry I didn't update!!!!!!! Here's another chapter! **

**Thanks for the review!**

**Disclaimer: Don't own anything.**

**I'll be gone on vacation from December 7th to the 27th, so this is the last update. Please review! Think of this as my Christmas present to you all.**

**--**

Kristen blew her hair out from her eyes. Alex was sitting in the seat next to her as they prepared for takeoff. _Great. Twelve hours to China. Then I gotta deal with…Shen. _Shen, the notoriously ruthless leader of the China branch Triads. She closed her eyes. _How did I get myself into this mess?_

--

Alex leaned against the seat tiredly. _How am I going to survive this? All I want to do is be normal for a bit. Hang out with my friends…and Sabina. Sabina…why'd she have to move! Now I'll never see her…I remember Damian Cray…and she didn't believe me. And now Kristen, another teenager my age is being used by MI6. Well it wouldn't be the first time; she was working for the Triads. I wonder how she would be if none of this had ever happened. How would __**I**_ _be? Just another regular school boy? _His thoughts reverted back to Sabina. _If she'd really liked me she would have agreed to move so quickly. Will she ever come back? What if she never does? Maybe I should move on…_

The plane took off. He picked up a magazine and waited for the plane to land.

--

Twelve hours later, Kristen jabbed Alex in the ribs to wake him up.

"What the-"

"Shh!" she muttered surreptiously pretending to look for something.

"Ah," he murmured and stood up to get his carryon. That was all they were allowed, a carryon each and one laptop. Kristen had the laptop.

They left the plane walking down the boarding passage and Alex shuddered as he felt the heat and humidity through the walls. It was a stark contrast to the cold, dehydrated air of the plane. Kristen was unaffected, choosing to walk faster towards the gate.

Alex hurried to catch up with her and they went past the security guard. Minutes later, both of them put their carry-ons through the scanner and walked through.

It beeped. A security guard frowned and took Kristen off to the side.

"Is this bag yours ma'am?"

She didn't give anything away. "Yes."

"I'm sorry, I have to examine it." He started rifling through the laptop bag and frowned in confusion when he only saw the laptop. Little did the poor, inexperienced guard know that there were many gadgets hidden in the laptop that only Kristen, Alex and Smithers knew about.

Kristen put on an annoyed expression. "It's a laptop! Of _course_ it's made of metal! Now I'm going to be late for my flight!"

The guard looked embarrassed. "Er of course madam. Please accept my apologies." He put the laptop back and ushered Kristen and Alex through.

They left the gate and went out into the parking lot. A taxi drove up. The driver rolled his window down and said, "Ms. Chang? Mr. Rider?"

"Mhm." Alex murmured.

"Come on in," the driver said, opening the door and getting out.

Alex glanced at the driver but eased into the cab, Kristen following.

"To the Monet Impressionist 66th Anniversary Hotel," the cab driver shut his door. Kristen shared a look with Alex. MI6.

"When we get there you will check in and a porter shall show you to your rooms and inform you of the many services our hotel provides. We will be there…in about fifteen minutes."

Alex nodded and stared blankly out of the window. Kristen suppressed a sigh. He'd been ignoring her for much of the time; choosing instead to observe the scenery. _Does he really hate me that much?_

--

The driver reached the Monet Impressionist 66th Anniversary Hotel and took their bags, motioning for them to follow. Kristen walked after him, deciding to give up on Alex's behavior.

A man of about thirty was at the reception desk, typing away on a computer. He looked up as they approached.

"Ah Ms. Chang, Alex Rider I presume?"

"Yes?" Alex answered, taking in the luxurious hotel.

"Good. Come this way," the receptionist took their suitcases and another man appeared at the desk to take his place.

The receptionist led them into an elevator, where they rose up into the highest level; 6. _I'm surprised no one has suspected this to be MI6's hotel. So many allusions to the agency._

"You will live in these two rooms while you carry out your mission. Every staff member has had a backround check done on them, speak several languages and are trained in martial arts, even the janitors. If this hotel was ever under attack, we are close to the coast and we have a ship. Everyone will be evacuated into the ship and we will sail for London. Your rooms have a door that connect the two, which I'm sure you will need for talks. That's all."

The two young spies nodded. The receptionist left the luggage behind in two rooms and disappeared. _So young for such dangerous work…I hope MI6 knows what they are doing,_ he thought sadly as he rode the elevator back to his desk.

--

Kristen sat on the bed, not really know what to do. The real trouble began tomorrow, when she would have to explain everything. And then, balancing MI6 and the Triads. _First…explain. And make sure I don't die._

--

The next morning, Kristen scribbled a note to Alex saying where she was going, not to follow and she'd be back as soon as she could.

She left the building with the earrings in; the other gadgets Smithers had given her hidden in her jeans pockets. Kristen had left the bracelet in the building after activating the tracking device to let MI6 know they'd arrived.

Only MI6 hadn't counted on the Triads giving her a few things of theirs. Even the Triads weren't so stupid that they would send an agent unarmed, even if it was a crucial bit of information. Kristen stepped off a curb and onto an old bus station and pressed 2-2-8 into the abused phone booth.

Not even a minute later a black car pulled up and rolled down its window.  
"Ms. Chang. We are expecting you," a man wearing sunglasses said and opened the door for her.

"Hope I wasn't too slow then?" Kristen asked lightly.

"No," the driver answered shortly. 

The first man closed the door and sat back down into the passenger seat. The driver swiftly brought them to a classy, high-profile apartment building destined for seedy politicians and shadowy businessmen.

The driver dropped the two of them off and the sunglasses-wearing man led Kristen up thirteenth floor. She could see everything in the frosted glass window panels next to the strong door.

Thirteen men clad in Armani, Gucci, Chanel, Hermes, any high-profile designer you'd care to name, someone was wearing it, were seated at a long table in quiet, vicious debate. Each and every one of those men were wanted for murder, felony, treachery, anything. But they instantly quieted down as soon as the man leading Kristen knocked on the door.

Kristen entered the room. The leader of the thirteen, the only one wearing white stood up and beckoned her to come to his side. Shen. The eighteen year old genius who led the Triads after his father's death. What he wanted…he got.

"Did you succeed?" he asked her emotionlessly. Everyone in that room knew that however carelessly he posed the question, if Kristen said no, she would be killed. All of the men were carrying guns.

"Yes. The…_boy_ is dead."

Shen narrowed his eyes. "I heard from my man that you didn't shoot him?"

Kristen gave him a look that said she knew she could do anything she wanted.

"He is dead. Does it matter in which way he was killed?"

Shen relaxed. "No."

One of the other men stirred. "She did not shoot him; therefore she was not obeying orders. Such behavior deserves punishment."

The eighteen-year-old inclined his head. "You find something wrong with the outcome of this mission?" he asked softly.

"No, just a question. Why did she not shoot him?"

Shen turned to Kristen, a question in his manner.

"He was right outside of his house. It would have been, ah, _messy_. Poison has many uses, no?"

The men around them murmured quietly.

The leader smiled softly, clapped his hands and stood up. "This meeting is over."

Kristen was about to leave when he put his hand on her shoulder. "Wait."

She stopped, and he waited until everyone had left.

"What really happened?" he asked quietly.

Kristen glanced at him oddly. "What do you mean?"

He snorted. "Please. Don't expect me to take that bullshit. Why didn't you shoot him? I know as well as you that you were far away enough so he couldn't see you."

"The sniper is my only protection…from anything. You gave me only so many bullets. To use them on him _would_ have been a waste wouldn't it?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Reality can't hide forever Kristen. You may as well tell me now."

"I've already told you."

Shen sighed. "I've missed you you know? The least you could do is tell me the truth."

Kristen smiled softly and let him hug her before saying, "Friends don't push others Shen." With that, she pulled away and left the building.

--

**How was that?!??! I had writers block for like a billion days…sorry!!!**

**Review response;**

**Independent-Chick-92: Thanks and so sorry for the not updating thing!! Usually I update every other week or so.**


	3. Chapter 3

**No reviews…thanks…By the way, I've just read Snakehead and decided this happens through the middle of it, so he's done everything in Snakehead except get back and meet Sabina.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own it.  
**

**--**

Kristen knew that she would have to tell Shen everything sometime. They'd been friends since his father had introduced them, for several months. And then his father had been murdered by a rival gang. So Shen was leader of the Triads. It wasn't that he himself was corrupt, like the other thirteen officials, he just looked on everything as 'business', and a way of life, Kristen mused as she buried her face in a pillow.

--

Alex had got up early and found a note in Kristen's room. She'd barely unpacked.

_Don't try and leave the hotel. They'll see you immediately. I'm in their building now;; wish me luck. Or don't really. I won't be in any danger, because now they 'owe' me. Be back soon. Kristen._

"Huh. Typical," he muttered, taking the note and himself back into his room. Alex was still annoyed that he'd been forced to take on yet another mission, and this time so far from backup. And all he really had to do was shadow Kristen! Surely MI6 could think up something better for him to do.

He heard someone unlock Kristen's room and go in. Wondering if she'd come back, he knocked on the door.

"Yeah?" Kristen's voice was muffled.

Alex opened the door and went back into her room, only to find her staring at her pillow.

"Uh, well, are you alright?" he asked uncertainly.

She sat up, tossing the pillow aside and hugging her knees. "Yeah."

"So how did your 'return' go?"

"Fine."

_What's up with the one word answers!? What, is she angry at me? Why the hell would she?_

"They didn't try to kill you?" he asked seriously, but with a spark in his eyes.

Kristen shrugged. "I think they would have…if it wasn't for Shen."

"Shen?"

"The leader."

"Does he need to be killed?" Alex asked casually.

She whipped her head around, sending a look of daggers stabbing into his eyes.

Alex winced. "What, your boyfriend or something?"

"Hell no. Friend."

"I'm sure."

"Yeah. Believe what you want, 'cause…the hell I care," she sighed and sat up.

Alex really didn't know what to say.

"Do you hate me?" Kristen suddenly asked, her clear gaze burning into his eyes.

He looked away. "Well…I didn't ask to be put on this mission…"

"So therefore you dislike me for making that happen," she stated, a sentence posed as a question.

"I-well-"

"Ugh why did I ask? Just…you don't have to answer."

Alex stared at her in perplexment. _Well. She certaintly is different. _

"Um well, I'll leave you here to think…I'll be in my room," he said awkwardly, and quickly left.

Once he had gone she let out a breath. _Maybe I do need to talk to Shen. _

--

Shen kissed the girl again before remembering all his troubles.

"Uh, I think we're done here, you can go now," he quickly dismissed the prostitute who looked slightly downcast as she left.

The eighteen-year-old sank down on his bed, thinking about his best friend. _I wonder if she is homesick…Perhaps Britain reminded her of the U.S. Why does she even agree to work with us? Not agree…more like…choose not to rebel. Everyone knows she could have told the authorities in three different countries…God she's confusing. Aren't all women? Which is why I stick to plain sex…with people I don't care about…manwhore. Ugh. _

Shen stretched out his lean, muscled body. _I should ask her to come again. And really talk. I should…I'll call her._ Dialing the numbers of her phone that the he'd given her, he waited for her to pick up.

--

Back in the hotel room, Kristen jerked upright as her phone went off. She picked it up and said, 'Hey.'

"Hey. So um, Kristen…I don't want to make you say things you don't want but it kind of seems like you need to talk…so…"

"Yeah. I think I do," she laughed slightly.

"Alright. Tomorrow? Or now?"

"Depends, what's happening tomorrow?"

"Umm Feng's coming over at around 1, and then everyone else is too, for discussing the Mafia."

"Now then? I have a feeling this will take awhile."

"M'kay. See you in a bit?"

"Yeah."

She hung up and just sat there for a second. Then she took her phone, stuck the explodable earrings in her ears, and took the fake pen and lipstick with her. Just in case. You can never be too careful around the Triads. Knocking on Alex's door, he opened it.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"I'm going back to the Triads for a bit…back to Shen's place."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Want me to come?"

"No, that's alright," Kristen tried to hide her alarm.

"If you say so…when are you coming back?"

"Don't know. It'll take an hour at the least."

Alex raised his other eyebrow. "Are you two going to-"

"Dear god you had better not finish that sentence! And no!"

"Ok then go already…you know we'll have to turn them all in right?"

"Yeah."

Kristen walked out the door, debating whether or not she should tell Shen about the whole MI6 thing. The debate lasted until she rang the doorbell on his penthouse suite.

Shen opened it, grinning.

"Hey," she greeted him, stepping inside.

"So, what's up?" Shen asked casually, concern flooding his eyes.

Right then she made her decision to tell him. He'd be really angry of course…but at least she would've done the right thing.

"Shen…you know when the Triads pushed you to make me kill Alex Rider?'

He narrowed his eyes. "Yes. What about it?"

"I didn't. I went to MI6."

Shen was completely shocked. "WHY?! WHAT THE HELL! You _KNOW_ what that means for me!" he forced his voice down into a normal voice.

"I'm completely sick of the Triads. Not just the things you ask me to do-I'm fine with that, but what the other leaders force your decisions to be."

He rubbed his temples. "I would've let you go home if you wanted!"

"Shen. Even if you had, I couldn't ask for you to do that. The Triads would probably decide on another leader then kill you for knowing too much. You know how it is. Even if you only think on it as business, I'm sure the governments of Britain, China and the U.S. don't."

"Kristen, they're still going to arrest me for being leader. You know that."

"I'll pull a few strings. It's not as if I _want_ you in jail. MI6 owe me for doing this, and I'll make sure they return the favor."

"It's not going to work Kristen!"

"Then I'll say…Feng is the leader. He's damn close to it anyways. You can be his son or something!"

Shen sighed softly. "Kristen, I've wanted to get out of here. But now I'm starting to think the only way is to go your way, and most likely I'll be sent to jail. Not the way I hoped."

"Hey. I'll take care of it. Promise."

"Just…don't land the both of us in jail. Please."

"I won't."

"So MI6 is sending you to spy on us, and when you have enough information turn us in. Interesting. Whatever happened to Rider?"

"Um…Shen…he's kind of…living at MI6's hotel next to where I'm living…" she cringed on the inside. Shen was probably unhealthily overprotective of her.

"WHAT?!"

"My god you're going to have a heart attack!" she said dryly. "I'm fine!"

"The guy you tried to kill is living next door to you!? That is NOT fine!!!" Ok. So Shen was a spaz. That is now established.

"Shen can you stop yelling? I'm afraid I'll have to call 911 and they'll start quizzing me on how you died."

He calmed himself down. "Why is he here?"

"Because MI6 didn't trust me…though at the end of this they should trust both me and Alex. He's...supposed to keep an eye on me."

"Is he here, outside this door?"

"Shen! No he isn't. He doesn't exactly want to be here."

"Yes, I wonder why."

Kristen sighed. "You can stop guilt tripping me now."

"Sorry. But…hm, how to say…do you have a crush on him?" Shen asked matter-of-factly.

"SHEN! Jesus Christ, when did you last get YOUR fix? You're always like this if you haven't gotten some in a couple of weeks."

He grinned sheepishly. "Um, last month…but I was about to get some before I decided you should talk."

Kristen wrinkled her nose. "Eurgh. Get yourself a girl instead of sleeping with hoes why don't you?"

"Because women are so freaking complicated. If you misunderstand like one sentence they'll ignore you for a month!"

She gave him a look.

"Ok, exaggeration. But still."

"A girlfriend is better than a no strings attached whore. What if you end up having a kid with someone you don't care for?"

Shen shrugged. "Dunno."  
"So can I go back now?" she asked, sensing his brooding.

"Yeah. I'll see you around,' he said distractedly.

Kristen smiled and let herself out.

--

**Hey. If there's still anyone reading this story, please review!! How was that? It's hard writing an Alex Rider fic, he has to be able to do anything. PLEASE REVIEW!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks for the review!!**

**Disclaimer: Don't own anything you recognize.**

**--**

Alex was bored as hell. There was no other way to put it, he simply was. MI6 had sent him here to crack the Triads right? Crack it with someone he didn't particularly trust. Awesome. Except she could be sleeping with the leader of the Triads. Which would make everything way more complicated.

_So. MI6 instructions, gather enough information to send to us, we'll move in and arrest them, and try not to get killed. Not to be pessimistic or anything. _He heard Kristen get back, and he knocked on her door again.

"Yeah?" she asked, opening it.

"What did you talk to the leader of the Triads about?" Alex asked, stepping in.

Kristen shrugged. "A lot. Not that you would care."

"Well I do care, seeing as it's the only thing we can talk about. What did you tell him?"

"Alex that's private."

"I'm private. I'm not even supposed to be here."

"Stop guilt tripping me."

"You owe me."

"No I don't. Don't you have a girlfriend you can be calling or worrying about right now?" she asked, shuffling some things away.

Something flashed in his eyes.

"So you do?" she asked shrewdly.

"Well, not exactly a girlfriend…" he said, thinking about Sabina.

"Yes well stop anno-" she broke off as her phone rang. _Fuck!_

Alex's eyes narrowed.

"Hello?" she said into the phone.

Sure as hell, Shen was the caller. "I have an idea."

"Then please say it, because I'm probably going to get ripped apart anyways."

"Get Alex Rider on the phone."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Kristen shrugged and gave Alex the phone, shooting a glare at him as she did so.

"Hello?" Alex asked. "Who is this?"

"You may not like it, but it's Shen. I think Kristen's talked about me. Well, I have a plan, and since you work for MI6 it's perfect."

"Go on." He was getting slightly annoyed at everything he had to do.

"There's a ball at the second in command's hotel. Of course, he's the one with the lists of everyone in the Triads and their next operations. The ball is this Saturday." Today was Tuesday.

"And?"

"I, and Kristen need to be at the Ball. It leaves you to break into Feng's hotel room, steal the papers and scarper."

"And why are you doing that, if you're the leader of the Triads?"

"Because the Triads is simply business. I'm not going to throw my life away for it, like my father did." Shen's voice was neutral.

"I see."

"Maybe you don't. Anyways, you two had better come to my place tomorrow-Kristen will show you where it is-so we can work out the finer details. Alright?"

"Yeah."

"Then bye. And tell Kristen to keep her head on her," Shen said, a hint of humor in his voice.

"I will," Alex said, and shut the phone.

"And what was he talking to you about?" Kristen asked, staring at the ceiling from on her bed.

Alex shrugged. "Stealing Feng's papers."

Her head jerked up. "WHAT?!"

And so, Alex began the difficult task of relaying everything Shen had told him without sounding like he was crazy.

"So…I have to…wear a _dress_?!" Kristen looked horrified.

Alex snorted. "You can work for the Triads, walk into a room full of dangerous men with weapons, and be scared of wearing a _dress_?!"

"I hate dresses!!!"

"You'll have to wear one anyways, because they won't let you in without. Shen said he'll get a stylist and make up artist."

Kristen moaned. "Augh."

"Hey, you and Shen will have to look pretty and dance at the Ball. _I_ have to cut through security and steal his papers."

Kristen looked very much as if she'd rather do that. "_I_ can do that!"

"Yes, well, I don't look Asian and I will definetly NOT wear a dress!"

"Yeah, I know," she sighed.

"It won't be that bad," he said, trying to cheer her up.

"Yeah. I guess."

--

Two days later, Alex was decked out in a t-shirt too big for him, baggy jeans and a baseball cap that was turned sideways. _All he needed was some bling and he'd be as good as gangsta,_ Kristen thought. _Hah! Alex, gangster. Too funny. _

He scowled. "Why do I have to dress like this again?"

"Because. Then you'll blen--…you'll be disguised."

"You were about to say blend in."

"Yeah, but then I realized that most people in China aren't in gangs."

He didn't reply, just followed her, scowling as he went.

--

A few minutes later, they were standing in front of Shen's apartment building. The receptionist barely glanced up as they took the elevator to the highest floor.

"He likes his suites huh?" Alex muttered.

Kristen shrugged. "When you have the ability to get the best, you would wouldn't you?"

"True."

Kristen rolled her eyes and knocked on Shen's door. He answered it and let them both in. Kristen could feel him scanning Alex up and down.

"Ok. So, are you two with me?" he asked casually.

"On destroying the Triads, of which you are leader of?" Alex said casually.

She rolled her eyes. "Alex, he's not actually _leader._ More like Fegghead's puppet."

"Fegghead?" Alex asked while Shen snorted.

"Inside joke," Shen said wryly.

Alex raised an eyebrow before asking, "So what's the plan?"

"Kristen and I, are going to the Ball, dance a bit, eat and listen to Feng talk about useless things like the newest model of guns and our recruit stats. But we can also sneak you in. Although it involves you dyeing your hair and eyebrows black."

"If I must," Alex said defeated. "Go on."

"We can sneak you in because of course, the guards trust the both of us and you can be a bellboy. There's going to be quite a few of maintenance men working on security. It'll be down for ten minutes, exactly the time they need to upgrade the system, and the time when you can sneak into Feng's suite. You'll go up in the elevator after the men. It's on the very top floor; penthouse suite."

"That seems to be common," Alex noted.

Shen smiled thinly. "You'll see why. It's the safest for…us. Then you'll go into his room with this card," Shen produced a thin room key. "It's the master key for all rooms. I swiped it from the cleaning ladies a few weeks back." He gave it to Alex.

"This is why I need to stay close to you. Without me you go crazy. Pick-pocketing!" Kristen muttered.

Alex rolled his eyes and asked Shen to continue.

"Then, in the living room where you'll enter, to the left there is a bookcase. Pull out the volume, _War and Peace_Behind it, there going to be an extremely thin number pad, about half an inch wide. The number you need to punch in is '113'. After that, a card key slot will appear to the bottom of it. Insert the room key, and a safe will pop up. Dial 13, 13, 13. It'll open and then take the papers, close everything, and _make sure they are the same as when you came,_" Shen stressed.

"Got it." Alex wasn't looking forward to this.

Shen rummaged around in his desk. "Then you'll have to put these pieces of papers in. Otherwise, the alarm would go off in half an hour, since the Triads never take more than one document out at a time."

"Then afterwards, come down. We'll be near the elevator, and we'll leave with you. And…that's the plan." Shen ended.

Kristen turned this all over in her mind.

"It's good," Alex said finally. "But is it foolproof?"

Shen grinned. "No. But what's the risk—where's the fun then?"

Kristen rolled her eyes again. "You're such a retard,' she laughed.

Alex couldn't help a small chuckle.

"Is that it?" Kristen asked, serious for a second.

"No. Umm I think you'll want to see your dress," Shen smirked.

"Where is it?" Kristen asked warily.

"In my room."

"Goddammit Shen it better not be something sluts wear!!" she bolted into his room.

"Wait for it…" Shen muttered.

Alex grinned. "Why does she hate…being a girl so much?"

"No she just hates dresses…'cause they almost killed her once," Shen said with a straight face.

"How?" Alex asked.

"Well, long story, but basically she almost fell down the extremely tall staircase because she tripped on the hem."

"SHEN! WHO PICKED THIS OUT?!" Kristen's voice could be heard.

He grinned. "At least she didn't swear," and went into his room. Alex followed.

The bathroom door was closed. Shen went over and said, "Kristen! Open the door, I want to see it!" he grinned.

"Damn you to hell," was heard in a muffled voice as the door opened.

She was wearing a strapless black dress that fell to just above her ankles. Kristen scowled and kept pulling the dress up. Shen grinned.

"OK I've worn it, we know how I'll look like, are we done?" she asked.

"It's a good thing you don't wear dresses otherwise I'd have my hands full on keeping you single," Shen smirked.

Kristen just closed the door and changed. Alex wondered if she'd ever dated before.

When she got back out, in jeans and a t-shirt, she said, "So. Plan's done. We'll see you in two days?" she asked Shen.

"Yeah. In two days. Try not to get killed," he flashed a look at Kristen that made her roll her eyes.

"Will do," she answered as they left the building.

Alex stayed silent, running through the plan again and again. They reached MI6's hotel and went up to their rooms without a problem.

"So, what are we doing tomorrow?" Kristen asked casually.

Alex shrugged. "Prepping?" The afternoon sun's rays were magnified through the window, causing the room to be brightly lit.

"Yeah I guess." They didn't say much after that; although they wouldn't admit it, they were both nervous as hell.

Alex said he would be in his room and Kristen nodded. Leaving, he wondered what could, and what would happen in two days.

--

**Wow I got a review!! Sorry guys but this is my hardest story to write so I'd really appreciate constructive criticism. **

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	5. Chapter 5

All Isn't Well

Today was it. The day of the Ball, where Kristen and Shen would pose, smile, pretend to laugh, whatever it took to act natural. And Alex would steal from someone notorious for being the real leader of China's Triads. Yeah, what could go wrong?

Kristen frowned, and pulled the sides of her dress up further. _Damn you Shen for picking this thing out. I look like a frickin slut! Jesus Christ, you'd think he would have half a sense of decency. Hah, well I might as well look good and innocent while Alex steals something from the Triads. _

The hair stylist sighed behind her as she twisted her hair into an elaborate bun. _For heaven's sake woman, I'm only 14! Well almost 15, but no need for all that…fashionable crap. _As the stylist admired her handiwork, another woman did her makeup quickly.

Kristen frowned again as the woman dabbed pink powdery stuff on her cheeks. _Why do I have to go through this crap but Shen doesn't? Lucky bastard. Then again, it's his fault that I have to get 'dressed up'. _

The lady asked her to close her eyes, and she felt something brush against her lids in complicated patterns.

And finally, the torture was over. When Kristen opened her eyes, she almost started at the sight of herself. She had been transformed into an elegant, rich looking woman. The stylist gave her a pair of high heels and that was it. Kristen no longer recognized herself. While she usually wore jeans and a tight-fitting t-shirt, the dress she was wearing stuck tightly to her, silhouetting her tall figure. The high heels added height and she looked…._glamorous_, she mused. _Odd. _

She smiled and thanked the two ladies, who were looking rather harassed by now.

"Yes, yes. If I may, you look beautiful darling," the plumper of the two murmured.

Kristen grinned again as the two ladies left the suite and she went to find Shen.

He was in the kitchen, grabbing a can of beer while he watched a sports game.

She couldn't resist rolling her eyes.

"Shen! We'll be in the hotel in less than three hours and all you can do is drink and watch t.v.?" she asked mock indignantly as she tottered across the tile to sit on the sofa next to him.

He glanced over, about to reply, then stopped, slack jawed.

"Wow…you look…good…" he smirked, giving her the once-over.

"Well you don't look half-bad yourself. And why so surprised?" she muttered, a grin spreading across her cheeks.

Shen was wearing a regular suit, except the shirt and tie he wore were navy.

He smirked again. "No reason. Do you think I can get a lady today?"

"Oh would you get your head out of the gutter! That makes girls so…"

"Turned on?" he supplied, now grinning wickedly.

"Man, you really need to get some!"

"Unfortunately not for awhile, so you'll have to put up with it some more. When is Alex coming over?"

"In ah…ten minutes."

A half-smile planted itself on Shen's lips. "Hm…let's get rolling."

Someone knocked on the door. Shen got it, and Alex followed him into the room.

"Ok Alex, you need a dye job," Kristen glanced at the can of hair dye.

"Eurgh…lemme do it myself. Please."

When Alex was done, a Rolls-Royce took them to the exclusive hotel where the ball was to be held. He was snuck in by one of the guards that Shen had paid off (five hundred bucks, who wouldn't?) Shen flicked his invitation at one of two men who were checking them, who let them in.

"Ready?" he muttered, mouth next to her ear.

"Let's go," she murmured back out of the corner of her mouth.

The huge ballroom where it was being held buzzed with suppressed energy and polite treachery. The treachery, of course, came from each and every one of the Triad members.

"Ah, Shen sir, you find everything enjoyable?" Feng suddenly appeared, nodding curtly to Kristen.

She smiled tightly back at him.

"Yes, thanks very much Feng. Good of you to set this up," Shen gave off a mildly impressed air.

"Much appreciated sir," Feng's lips curved.

The woman on his arm giggled, fluttering her lashes at Shen. Kristen suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. _Slut. On the arm of Feng and flirting with Shen. Tsk tsk. _

Another commander came to ask Feng a question so Shen steered Kristen out of the way and into a corner that had full view of the elevator.

--

Alex slipped from the elevator and walked to the door of Feng's suite. Of course, once inside the only alarms were on the window, and fire alarms. He slid the master key Shen had given him into the slot and pushed the door open as it clicked. Alex then produced Kristen's phone and took a picture of the room. Hurrying towards the living room's bookcase, he searched among the shelves for _War and Peace._ As he took it out, sure as hell, a number pad was there. Punching in '113', he watched as a card key slot appeared. The card went in and out. A light flashed green and a safe slowly appeared, being moved by smoothly whirring gears. As it came to a halt, Alex bent and dialed '13, 13, 13' and watched as something clicked and the door opened. Inside were a bundle of papers; Alex grabbed them and stuffed the loose leaf that Shen had given him inside. As he closed the door and carefully put everything back in place, he also put the paper inside the waistband of his pants—so he wouldn't lose it. Then, glancing at the picture in the cell phone, arranged everything so that nothing looked wrong.

Amazed that everything had gone off without a hitch, he exited the room and went down the elevator, still in his workman's guise. Across the huge room, Shen swore softly as he pulled Kristen to her feet. Someone had noticed Alex—what they were going to say was unknown. Alex caught Kristen's eye and winking, left the building. He was getting back to MI6's hotel; the other two were to follow surreptitiously.

They leisurely walked towards the exit—as if nothing was out of the usual. There, Shen got a taxi and it drove towards the hotel. Kristen gave the man fifty bucks—if they were short of one thing it definetly wasn't money.

As the two of them entered Alex's room, Kristen started scanning the papers with the pen Smithers had given her.

"Er, you and Shen should change. I'll take it from here, and tell the hotel staff to get ready to run," Alex offered.

"Yeah thanks," Kristen said, relieved. She kicked off her heels, grabbed her much loved jeans and a t-shirt and headed towards the bathroom to change.

Alex finished scanning the documents and stuffed them back in the waistband of his jeans. Kristen and Shen emerged from the other rooms and grabbed everything they had to tell the hotel manager to evacuate. But they didn't have to go far—the manager called them and told them they were already on the ship after MI6 received the first document. He urged them to hurry and make their way to the ship too so they could get rid of their trail.

The manager left. Alex made a last check on things and they too, fled. But it wasn't long before twenty Triad members—all armed and on motorcycles—caught up to them.

_Fuck! Feng must've checked the safe! Some kind of alarm must've gone off! DAMN!_

Shen was swearing violently as well.

Kristen shared a look with Alex—one that said to back down.

They raised their hands and the leader grinned violently.

"Good, good. Now, come with us. And if you cause any trouble…" he trailed off threateningly.

"Yeah we got it," Alex mumbled. One of the guns was jabbing uncomfortably into his neck.

"Good," the leader growled. "Take them ahead," he nodded to three members.

They were handcuffed around the men so they wouldn't fall off as they rode.

Shen gritted his teeth as he was pushed onto the motorcycle—jarring a very sensitive part of his anatomy.

_Man this is fucking shit,_ Kristen glared at the men who just snickered. One of them made a point of staring at her chest. _Bastards. Just 'cause I have a chest doesn't mean I'm a fucking whore._ She would've kneed him in the balls if she wasn't handcuffed to the wrong guy.

Slowly, they made their way to Triad Headquarters. Feng was there, his face a mask of cold fury.

"So, the so called devoted leader of the China Triads decides to betray us?" he spat out. "And his little whore," Kristen's eyes whipped around to stare daggers at him, "I knew she was trouble from the first day the report came back she killed Alex Rider using a different method. And this, I presume, is Alex Rider?" he nodded at Alex.

The leader of the gang who'd attacked the trio nodded. "Yes. And while we were searching them, I found this in his pants."

The three of them smirked as Feng wrinkled his nose. "Normally I would ask why you were searching his pants," the leader flushed darkly, "But as these papers are of the utmost importance…I suppose you will be rewarded. Very well. Take them to the Interrogation Center."

Interrogation Center. _Doesn't sound good,_ Alex grimaced. There must've been SOME alarm he'd overlooked…Shit.

Someone undid his handcuffs to the man in front of him, only to be cuffed to an iron bar. To the right of him, he saw Kristen, to the left, Shen.

"Well this is a party," he snorted.

"Boss, do we need to…_search_ them?" one of the men asked, staring at Kristen hungrily.

"Hmmm…" while the boss deliberated, Alex saw Kristen discreetly tap the right jewel of her bracelet three times.

"Yes, you do," the man decided. "Just feel for anything and I'll take a look at it if it seems suspicious," he was amazingly arrogant.

The same men that they'd been handcuffed to, Shin, Tang and Hoo, approached the trio and started running their hands down their bodies. Kristen glared and kicked Hoo in the stomach when he tried to feel her up.

"Fucking pervert!" she growled in Chinese.

Shen glanced around; he'd hardly ever heard her speak Chinese before. Tang was patting around his butt—was the man homo or something?

That left Shin to efficiently frisk Alex. He did so much faster than the other two—Hoo who was still grimacing from the kick Kristen had delivered—and Tang, slowly assembling a switchblade and two guns Shen had had.

Hoo patted around and found a gun stuffed in her sneakers, and another one held to her body by the waistband of her jeans. He managed to grin—and drop the other two guns onto the pile assembled by Tang.

"Done," Shin announced to the boss. Kristen was amazed. Hoo hadn't even taken the lipstick (though that WAS in her bra) or the earrings, but had taken the compact powder thing.

The boss cast a critical eye over the pile and ordered two men to carry it to the 'Weapons Center'. Creative fellows weren't they? Then the man ordered handkerchiefs be tied around their mouths so they couldn't talk to each other.

That put a damper on things. But as soon as they had left, Kristen raised herself, pushing against the wall with great effort so that her hands could reach the lipstick tube.

"God Shen, Alex look the other-fucking-way!" she grunted, chafing her wrists on the cuffs. After they did so, she tipped her shirt so that the tube was hanging, and grabbed it with her mouth. Her hand came around to grab it, uncap it and smear some on the handcuffs. The metal sizzled, then seconds later dropped to the floor with a clang. Kristen winced, and then smeared more on her other handcuff. When she was out of them, she freed Shen and Alex.

Stabbing the last of the lipstick into the lock, she watched as it sizzled.

"Anything you need to get?" she whispered.

Alex shook his head.

"No. The stuff I had on me were actually really bad quality," Shen grinned.

"M'kay. So can we scarper?"

"Yeah."

Quietly, they snuck out of Triad HQ, Shen leading them. They were at the docks, about to jump onto MI6's ship when the telltale screech of tires and glint of metal gave away the Triad's position.

"Ah fuck."

--

**Ahh!! I'd promised myself I'd have this up two days ago—sorry! Just a hint, I update based on how many readers/reviewers I have. :D **

**Please review!**

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	6. Chapter 6

**Thanks for the reviews! So sorry for not updating (that's me shrinking away in shame right there). Read and review please! Enjoy!**

Disclaimer: Don't own anything you recognize :

Chapter 6

MI6's crew hurriedly cast off as they climbed on from a rope ladder. Shen reached the deck first, hauling Kristen up and helping Alex as well. The Triads were jumping off their motorcycles, machine guns in hand.

"Tell the captain we're under fire!!" Shen shouted to a crew member, who ordered everyone to get down.

_Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat. _Kristen saw the bullets pierce the metal hull in a relatively straight line. _Damn. They have good aim too!_

The crew scurried about, keeping as low as possible as they tied things together so they wouldn't fall. Several bullets pierced the sails; small circular holes dotted the fabric.

"Fuck," Kristen swore. And she wouldn't shoot back at them—her pride wouldn't let her do that, not to mention Shen would kill her for sinking so low. MI6? Hm. Maybe. Depends if they even were armed, which she highly doubted.

The ship was moving away from port, going at ten knots an hour, which wasn't particularly fast enough. Civilians were screaming at the sounds of gunshots, even though they were all directed towards the ship. A bullet smashed right next to Kristen, causing glass to fly and sink into her arm.

_Fuck_.

She rolled over, crawling to the stairs. Concerned, the other two followed. Sirens were wailing; the only sign that police had heard about the shooting. A few more shots—then silence. The crew cleaned up the damage and one carefully took out the glass in her arm, pouring water over it and then putting a bandage on it.

Shen was still wary. "Tell the captain to hurry. I wouldn't be surprised if the Triads follow us."

The woman nodded, disappearing into the front of the ship.

"Goddamn!" Alex swore, near the back of the ship. Shen came running, Kristen following more slowly.

"What?" he asked.

"Please tell me that's not them," Alex responded, indicating the smaller, grey boat that was speeding towards them.

Shen's eyes widened, then he dashed after the woman to tell her. The ship was already speeding up thanks to the powerful engines. The crew shoved everyone under the deck to safety.

The ship sped up noticeably, now going twenty knots per hour, a good deal faster than the smaller boat that was following could. Yet, the guns kept pattering away as police closed off the docks and sent a motorboat out to catch the Triads.

One of the members turned and shot the two men operating the police boat—much to the shock of civilian onlookers.

Kristen could tell that the police were already helpless—by the way one of them attempted to shout orders that were never carried out. Another bullet smashed the wall dangerously near Alex's crotch area—he dove into her.

She landed on her back, acutely aware of the blood that was trickling out of the wound the glass had carved into her. His head was on her stomach—she scrambled away as fast as she could.

Shen whistled, grinning dirtily.

Kristen smacked him, and then winced as the bandage ripped part of the half-dried scab.

He glanced at her, concerned, before checking through the window that the Triads were far behind. They were; having turned back.

"Odd," he muttered. "Feng doesn't give up this fast."

Alex shook his head. "No…they'll strike sometime later. They'll be getting out of here--"

"To avoid the police," Shen finished. "And the publicity. I'll ask the captain to make as fast as we can to Malaysia, where we can get supplies, then get to England."

Kristen shrugged. "Alright."

The ship turned, and then sliced smoothly through the waves forward.

--

A few days later, they docked at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Three of the crew members went to buy supplies, the rest made repairs to the ship and stocked up on fuel. Kristen, Alex and Shen stayed aboard, making a report to MI6.

"So um, we have the list of people—blimey, that's huge!" Alex's jaw dropped. There were more than 5,000 Triad members across the globe—about a thousand in China alone.

Kristen shrugged.

Shen continued, "So we just give them the list of operations, where to find the members, etc?"

"That should be good enough," Kristen murmured. She'd gone quiet after the shard of glass had cut her; it hurt like hell on fire.

An hour later, they cast off, headed west towards Britain. There was nothing to do but wait.

--

Hours later, Kristen woke up as the ship crashed against heavy waves. _What the…_

Feet were pounding around on deck above, so she decided to investigate.

Kristen stumbled up the stairs, wondering why on earth they were going that fast. When she flung open the door, however, she swore loudly.

Behind them, another ship was following. And from the symbol on the front—it was the Triads. She gritted her teeth from the hard impact of _something_ that the Triads had fired. Alex and Shen were already on deck, the first thrown to the floor.

"The Triads are like this?" he gasped, rolling to avoid a chair that went flying.

Shen nodded grimly. "The Triads aren't as large as the Mafia, or as rich and sophisticated as Scorpia. We—or, now, they, go in for brutality, ruthlessness and efficiency. Easily detected, but members aren't easily found."

The ship shuddered violently, and then surged ahead once more.

"Well," a crew member murmured. "HQ will be interested to know that."

"How many more days till we reach London?" Alex demanded of the poor man.

"Hard to say, perhaps two weeks, give or take," he answered.

Alex swore.

"Is it possible for us to reach MI6 with transmitters or something?" Shen cut in calmly.

"Well, yes, but it's uncertain if they will have the receivers on," the man asked.

Suddenly Shen looked powerful and angry, worthy of being leader of the Triads. "Just try for god's fucking sake! I'd forgotten about the deal we made with Levi Kroll!"

The other two snapped to attention, as more ammunition was fired at them.

"What the hell!! WHAT deal!?" Alex shouted while a few more holes appeared about his head.

Kristen turned around and snapped, "SHUT up Alex! NOT while we're trying to escape from the Triads!"

"What deal?" Alex persisted. "I need to know! Kroll is part of Scorpia!"

"Very good Alex," Kristen answered dryly. "I had NO idea Levi Kroll was part of Scorpia!"

Shen finally got his transmitter in form of a telephone and was pressing some buttons in an attempt to reach MI6.

"Request from vessel 314 to HQ…yes this is very important…concerns Triads…no!! No this is not a joke…Alex Rider is right next to me!"

Suddenly the woman on the other end went very silent.

"Open sesame!" Kristen said sarcastically.

"Who is this? Alan Blunt? Alright, this is the former Triads leader…NO we have NOT abducted Alex Rider and the crew…no, that is not me firing bullets…OK well it is the Triads chasing us across Malaysia…I did not give them the order to….ALEX get over here!" Shen shouted frustratedly while Kristen snickered.

"Verify the fact that I have nothing to do with the Triads now and I only want to deliver the information," he said impatiently.

"Hello?" Alex asked, picking up the telephone.

"Alex?" Alan Blunt responded. "Are you ok?"

"If the fact that we're being chased by the Triads around the coast of Malaysia and that we're dodging bullets here means we're ok, then yeah, we're dandy."

"Did you complete your mission? Where's Kristen?"

"She's right next to me, and yes, we have several things to deliver. Did you get the papers, by the way?"

"Yes, we did. We're working on sending them to the Chinese authorities and on convincing them that the papers are reliable."

"Good, because we went through some blood, sweat and tears to get them."

"We've made contact with the captain of the ship," Blunt went on, ignoring Alex's latest comment, "And you should be back in about eight to nine days. You also have permission to fire back."

"Well then, this should be interesting. We kind of have to go now, and yes, Shen is the real deal," Alex said as he hung up.

"Nice," Kristen said, concentrating on the reopened cut.

"Why'd you hang up?" Shen asked, slightly annoyed. "I needed to tell them something."

"Shen, just ask for a computer and I'll get it to them," Kristen said lazily, tracing the cut with her nail.

The crew member was already off and coming back with a laptop. He booted it up and handed it to Kristen, who hit a few keys and was in.

"Mm, so what did you want to say?" she asked.

"Triads' deal with Levi Kroll of Scorpia's executive board is due to being within a month…we're dealing with a coup of Chad to get to their oil. Scorpia is basically going to kill all of the leaders while they are in the capital—flattening the building with a man made tornado."

Alex looked grim while Kristen rapidly typed all of it in.

"Got it. Anything else?"

"No, it can wait. Since we have permission to fire, we should use it. Triads have a base in South Africa, where we'll need to stop again."

"Alright, tell the Captain," Alex sent the poor man running again.

Kristen yawned. "Is that it? Cause otherwise I'm tired…"

"Yeah that's all," Shen muttered. "Go ahead and sleep."

"M'kay. Call me when you need me," she wandered off.

Alex watched her go. How was it, for her, to be separated from her family, as if they were dead? How was it, to be blackmailed into crimes—much like he was forced to become a spy for MI6? How was it…to only be able to talk to Shen? At least MI6 had allowed him to stay in school whenever he could and see Jack...

Shen said quietly, "I'm worried about her."

He turned. "Why?" he asked curiously.

"She…doesn't let herself _feel_ enough. I want to let her get her old life back…see her friends, family. I don't know if I can though. And I dunno if she would want to go back."

"How'd the Triads pick her in the first place?"

Shen shrugged. "She was a witness when we robbed a bank. They kidnapped her, sent her on a suicide mission and were amazed when she survived."

Alex nodded. "I see." Such a stroke of bad luck! Just to have seen a crime had thrown her into the underground world of spies and treason.

"What about you?" Shen asked. "I know you don't risk your neck willingly for MI6."

Alex shrugged. "Jack's visa is expired. If I don't do what they want, I'll be shipped off to an orphanage."

Shen nodded again, not seeming surprised. "Hey, where are we?" he asked himself. "Getting close to Seychelles?" He glanced at the ocean, then straight ahead disappointedly. "No, too early," he muttered to himself.

--

**So sorry for the late update! I've been really busy, as well as been writing my other fics. This is the last time I have so many fics open. **

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	7. Chapter 7

South Africa was just a few miles ahead

**Thank you for the review SheWeapon1!**

**Disclaimer: Don't own anything you recognize.**

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South Africa was just a few miles ahead. Alex was on the deck, surveying the ocean sunrise. Under any other circumstances, it would've been beautiful. Now, it only was a looming reminder of the danger that was approaching.

Kristen was in front of him, leaning on the handrail. The wind kept blowing her shoulder length hair in her face, resulting in a few curses that punctured the still air.

Alex turned away to hide a grin and saw Shen appear, yawning.

"Ten minutes to Cape Town," he announced.

Kristen turned. "Then what's the plan?"

"The crew is going to refuel; all of the ones going are doing that so they'll be faster. Us three are going grocery shopping."

Kristen rolled her eyes. "Do we have money?"

"Yeah, 200£. We have to spend all of it in an hour."

Her eyes twinkled. "That'll be easy."

Alex gave her a look.

"Hey, just because I'm in this underground spy world doesn't mean I don't like to shop anymore."

"Don't call her out on it…last time I lost a bet with her I had to let her use my credit card for an hour; she maxed it out in forty-five minutes," Shen sighed. "Took me forever to pay it all back without the Triads knowing."

"_You _were the one who bet on those loser Chicago Bears," Kristen stuck her tongue out childishly. "Even though they're my home team, I know they suck."

"At least I have loyalty," Shen grumbled.

Alex grinned, shaking his head. They were so…different to what he was used to. If they had each other, they were perfectly fine in this underground world.

Minutes later, they were landing. Half of the crew remained on the ship for repairs and lookout.

"Alright, the crew told me there's a grocery store straight ahead and turn right from the pier. The list is…about a page long. Here—," Shen neatly folded and split the paper three ways. "After we finish our pages meet in front of the cash register, we'll pay together."

"I suppose we'll have to be quick about it?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, forty-five minutes tops,' Shen answered and handed out the slips of paper.

"Let's go!" Kristen bounded off the deck and was half-way off the gangplank when they caught up to her.

"Wow, you're a little excited aren't you?" Alex muttered.

"I haven't been shopping in months; even if it's for groceries I'm fine!"

Alex glanced at Shen, eyebrows raised. The taller boy shrugged.

When they reached the entrance, they split up.

Kristen had all the fruits and vegetables. _Probably a good thing that they weren't fragile, _Shen thought as he watched her careen crazily through the crowd.

"Freak," he muttered to himself, shaking his head as he headed towards the meats and processed food section.

Alex was assigned milk and fruit juice. He meticulously picked out several cartons and gallons of the stuff, carefully setting them into his cart. Ahead of him, he saw Kristen throwing what looked like spinach haphazardly into her own cart. Alex grinned and shook his head yet again. It seemed like a lot of head shaking was going on when it came to her.

Shen, on the other hand, was piling towers of canned food (baby corn and Progresso soup being some of them) into his own shopping cart.

When they met at the register, Shen pulled out the pound notes and paid quickly. Kristen grinned at the sight of everyone's round eyes as they took in how much they bought.

The three of them were halfway to the ship before shots rang out.

Shen swore. "I should've known they wouldn't give up so easily." He turned his head to check where the bullets were coming from.

"Yeah, why can't they for once," Kristen pushed the cart faster and started running. Alex followed, back to her to watch for other intruders.

"No cover…can't be there or there…fuck, east, east, east!" Shen darted forward onto the gangplank.

Bullets suddenly sprayed into the air. Shen threw himself to the ground and shouting out frantically, "Get down!!"

Only Alex heard him he could only watch while Kristen turned, eyes widening.

Alex tackled her and pulled her legs to the ground. He landed on top of her, yet again, as a bullet landed just above them.

"Fuck,' she breathed, craning her head to look at the bullet.

Then the cart went rolling down the gangway. Alex pushed off the ground and caught the handle while racing forward. Behind him, Shen yanked Kristen up off the wood and pulled her with him.

Kristen was going backwards and could see a few black-clothed lean men roll out from their hiding places, wielding slim black guns. She scrambled up and pulled herself up the gangway where the crew was frantically casting off.

Two of the Triad members latched onto the rail of the ship as Kristen rolled away. Shen flipped out; out a petite gun came and he pulled the trigger.

But, as Kristen knew, Shen wouldn't kill anyone unless he absolutely HAD to. He'd only shot so near them that they'd rolled backwards—resulting in two rather nasty falls to the cement deck below.

Which still meant they were dead.

Kristen rolled her eyes and headed towards the inside room, wobbling slightly as the ship steered away. Everyone was crammed in the crew room, connected to the captain's room of control. They were silent, watching the outside. And suddenly, glass shattered and a dark blur smashed into the room. Almost instantly, the crew and Shen had guns out, Alex settling for china plates.

It was a man, late 20s Kristen estimated, wearing the trademark uniform black with a single red band around the right wrist of the Triads. His eyes took in the various weapons around him, and he dropped his own, hands up.

"Why are you here?" Kristen asked, not seeming to notice she was the closest one to the man while the rest were edging away.

He shrugged. "Because my commander told me to infiltrate the ship."

The captain entered from the adjourning room and motioned for another crew member to take the wheel. "Who, incidentally, is your commander?"

The man answered, "I don't know his name; he is shrouded in secrecy."

Kristen grew bored soon, not even halfway through the interrogation and got up to sit near the other two, eyes closing. Her head slipped onto Shen's shoulder. Alex raised an eyebrow; how could she sleep at a time like this?

However, a few hours later, she was rather rudely awakened when the room emptied out and the man bound and taken to a room under deck.

"What do we do now?" Alex asked as they watched the sun set again on the waves.

"We wait until we get to Britain," Shen said, eyeing the door in which behind the prisoner lay.

--

Mrs. Tulip Jones and Mr. Alan Blunt were seated in front of each other, each with the same paper in their hands; the transcript of the message from ship SH-623.

"When are they due to land?" Mrs. Jones asked.

"On Tuesday, four days from now, noon," Alan Blunt answered.

"For this…Triad leader, what do you make of him?"

Blunt considered this question. The man had sounded impatient and worried on the phone—no hardened leader would let such feelings across to what potentially could be an enemy. Was he young, then? The Triads were shrouded in shadows.

"I do not know. Perhaps he is confusing us. We know not much about the Triads, except that they operate in an older-brother younger-brother style. Lack of respect could kill you there."

"How is the Kristen girl doing?"

"Well, considering the dangers. She and Alex have been working quickly. I am amazed that the Triads kept a full list of who is in their gang. I've also faxed copies to the CIA, ASIS, MSS(China), CSIS(Canada), BND(Germany), DGSE(France's external intelligence agency), AISE(Italy's external intelligence agency), and DHI(Japan) for arrest. It'll take some persuading however; Walker and his diplomatic team are already on it."

"And what of the Triad's next mission? Kroll obviously contacted them for something."

Alan Blunt looked up grimly. "Levi Kroll is in charge of the next Scorpia project. They plan to lead a coup of Chad and take command of its oil. You know what that means."

Her eyes cleared as she realized. "We'd be funding them directly from buying the oil."

"And not just us…the world."

--

Feng's face was darkened when he was told that a man was killed and another gone missing in the failed abduction attempt on the former leader of the Triads and his friends.

"Why is it that the men under my control are utterly incompetent failures?" he mused quietly. "It seems that when the traitor leader left, all obedience and ability also left. Why is that?"

The men standing around him didn't dare say anything. However, the women on his lap, Angelica, purred softly.

"Dispatch a ship to go after them. Send a crew of two hundred. Stock the ship with fifty machine guns, three barrels of ammunition and make sure everyone has a weapon. Now."

Four men quickly left to give orders and oversee them.

Feng motioned for the others to leave and he turned to Angelica.

"Now, where were we?" he asked with a dirty smile.

--

**Dear god it's been long! I admit I was getting rather slow at the end and decided you all would probably like a faster update then a couple more paragraphs longer? **

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	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Chapter 8…

"WHAT!? What do you mean the documents we stole only had a third of the Triad members on them?!" Alex screeched.

"Well, it _would_ be kind of stupid to list all your members in one place where the other leaders knew where it was," Kristen muttered.

"Never mid. We'll reach London soon," Shen's voice was heard as he strode into the room.

Kristen stayed for about a second longer before abruptly turning and leaving, not wanting to talk any longer. Who knew what would happen to her and Shen once they landed? Somehow she doubted MI6 would hold a welcome back party.

Behind her, Alex murmured, "Is she angry?"

Shen shook his head. "I think she just doesn't know what she'll do when we land. I think she wants to go home maybe, but life wouldn't be the same."

She could here them clearly, and it only pushed her to get further away. Kristen came against the rail of the ship, gritting her teeth slightly as the afternoon rays were magnified in her tight dark jeans and t-shirt. Her elbows came down on the rail and her eyes raked against the backdrop, taking in Europe.

Any other time and she would've been snapping pictures like crazy. Now though, she was on edge and her nerves stretched to breaking point. The air felt unpleasantly warm and muggy.

The ship cruised into a spot at the docks half an hour later, and the crew ushered the three of them off. A black sedan pulled up and the driver got out.

"Alex Rider and company?" he asked.

Alex nodded.

"Get in," he said briefly.

They did. The man drove like he spoke, fast and to the point. They reached MI6 headquarters in fifteen minutes.

Kristen opened the door and got out, looking much like a celebrity as she did so. Perhaps it was the way she moved.

Alex shut the door and they headed into Royal and General Bank apprehensively.

A security guard let them up and this time it was Alex who led the way into Alan Blunt's office. Mrs. Jones also sat there next to him. There were three seats in front of their desk; they took them without a word.

"Alex, Kristen. Who incidentally might you be?" Alan Blunt's eyes narrowed.

"This is Shen. He helped us while we were there," Alex supplied.

Kristen nodded, cold-killer-bitch face in place.

"Very well. Thanks to you three, we have vital information on their next moves. I take it you've heard what Levi Kroll and the Triads are planning to do?"

"Plan a coup of Chad, for their oil," Shen answered.

"Yes. We relocated a few agents once your information got through—we'll let you know how that goes. Otherwise, congratulations on infiltrating the Triads. Shen, Kristen, we've arranged for you two to live in the Bridge Hotel," Mrs. Jones said.  
Shen nodded. Kristen made no sign she heard.

"And that's all," Blunt finished.

Alex and Shen got up and left, the locked door swinging shut before they realized Kristen hadn't come out with them.

"We would love to have you Kristen. Possibly work with Alex too. We could arrange it so that you can live here."

Ignoring this, she asked them, "Does the CIA know about me?"

Mrs. Jones answered. "Yes…they are generally astonished but are ready to take you back to the states. I'm sure they would grant your friend a permanent visa."

"Do you know what happened to my family?"

Mrs. Jones hesitated, then looked at Blunt. He took over. "Your family…we did a search check yesterday and it seems Scorpia—Levi Kroll actually, something about getting back at Alex— somehow got wind of you. They're…they're dead."

Kristen absorbed this without a change in facial expression. "Thank you."

She stood up and left the room. Outside, Shen glanced curiously at her but didn't ask.

Alex relived his previous moments in London. He had spent two wonderful weeks with Sabina, touring London's hot spots. She'd left for America about a week before he'd almost gotten killed by Kristen. Kristen…she was interesting. And what had she talked to Blunt and Mrs. Jones about? She'd come out looking the same, but her aura had stiffened royally.

They had dinner at Alex's house, Jack watching both of the newcomers curiously. Then, commenting that the air was like a morgue, left the table.

Kristen stayed at a hotel, sharing a room. Alex dropped by some time around 9:30, which Kristen had already gone to sleep. Knocking on the room number, he waited while Shen opened the door.

"Hey," the darker haired boy muttered, and let him in. Alex observed immediately that he was watching TV, with subtitles on and the volume off.

"She's already asleep?" Alex asked. "Pretty early."

Shen shrugged. "You saw what happened in MI6."

Alex felt a twinge of guilt. "Yeah. What d'you think..?"

"I dunno. It can't be good though, she was brooding on it the whole afternoon. And I bet that's why she went to sleep so early." Lowering his voice, he added, "I doubt she's truly asleep. She's a hella good actress; the sleep thing is probably to make sure I don't ask her anything."

Alex was silent. "I want to know more about her," he finally responded. "Why she's like how she is, how she ended up with you, her personality, what she thinks of me, you, and everything else I'm not clued in on."

Shen took his time answering. "Well, you know how she and I met. I don't know how, but we became really close. She was already pretty closed when I met her—and I think this Triad business just made her even more. I don't know what she thinks of me, but I get the impression that she respects you, even if she doesn't show it. I can tell you that she's hella sexy though. But she has the worst self esteem I've ever seen. She has strict ideals she would prefer to stick two, strong rules about love, health, mostly her pride.Oh and she loves music, can't live without it."

"I see." Alex wondered if Shen was making it all up. Kristen hadn't displayed half the things he'd just told him.

"It's getting late; do you wanna stay here or get back home?"

"I'll go home. It's been awhile since I've hung out with Jack," Alex answered.

Shen nodded. "Alright. See you tomorrow."

Alex nodded and left.

Shen then went to brush his teeth and fell back on his bed, sound asleep.

And like a shadow, Kristen rose from her bed, already dressed in her dark jeans and t-shirt. Grabbing a key, she slipped out of the room and the hotel. Three blocks to the west brought her in front of Royal and General bank. Squaring herself, she opened the door and walked in.

"What are you doing here?" a guard asked, coming closer to her.

"I have a meeting with Mr. Blunt and Mrs. Jones," she said smoothly. She had guessed correctly that they stayed at work more than they needed to.

His eyebrows rose. They normally didn't meet with people this late. Then again, what did he know of the eccentric and mysterious Special Operations?

"Head on up," before he had finished talking, she had already taken the stairs in stride.

Coming into the hallway two stories up, Kristen knocked on where she remembered Blunt's office to be.

"Come in," she heard his voice resonate.

"I must say, I didn't expect to see _you_ Kristen," Mrs. Jones said as the tall girl took a seat.

She looked incredibly confident and assured.

"I have a proposition," she said smoothly.

Blunt narrowed his eyes, but motioned for her to go on.

"Put me in Chad. Let me divert Levi Kroll."

"Why would we want you to do that?" Mrs. Jones asked despite herself.

Kristen smiled thinly. "Firstly, you avoid a coup of Chad. Extremely grateful…wouldn't you think? A gift of some hundred thousand barrels of oil should cover that. Secondly, a Scorpia Executive Board member would be terminated. Think…3 members had already died. The oldest was murdered by none other than Scorpia themselves. Julia Rothman and Major Yu were taken care of by Alex Rider. A 6th leader dear would cripple them even more."

They considered her proposal.

Mrs. Jones thought that she was already prepared for—maybe destined for leading an intelligence agency.

They conferred silently for three minutes that felt like forever to Kristen. For all the calm she radiated, inside her heart was pounding.

"We have reached an agreement," Blunt announced. "Next week, you will begin. We will test you, see your skills and how advanced you are. Then, you will endure a few weeks training. Chad's coup is scheduled for the next full moon—October 29th."

Two days before Halloween, Kristen thought.

"I have a request to make," she stated.

"Yes?"

"Don't tell Alex anything. I doubt he'd be pleased with either of us."

They nodded. "Next week, Tuesday."

"I'll be here."

Rising, she left the room and the door clicked shut behind her. Down the stars, through the doors and back into the hotel she went. When she stopped in front of their room, she slid the card into the lock. A beep occurred and she opened the door, silently sliding into bed. She would not get much sleep tonight.

--

The next day, while Alex Rider went to school and tried to catch up on his school work, Kristen was asking Shen if he would continue with her.

"I won't make you come with me; into whatever training they want me to do however much I'd like you to. Her gaze and voice were steady and remarkable clear.

"I'll go with you. Hell knows you need someone to watch your back," he cracked.

She shot a thank you grin at him.

"What did you talk to them about?" he asked.

"They told me my family was dead. That's why I'm doing this—to bring down Scorpia and exact revenge."

"Hm. Be careful with revenge—its funny where that can take you."

"Mm."

"When do we go?"

"Next week. MI6 says we'll be headed for the training camp on Tuesday…away for a few weeks. To Alex we're going back to America."

His brows knitted together. "Is that a good idea…? I hate lying to him, especially since we were thrown together for so long."

"It's MI6…It'll be fine. And after I bring down Scorpia, I want to go home." She looked tired, and most definetly home sick. "If I even still have a home."

He didn't reply.

--

Alex rubbed his temples. Already, three classes in, he had a stack of homework as big as the fifth Harry Potter book. In addition to the fact that there was no way he'd be able to get them in before midterm, he was _bored._ Maybe not bored—restless. School and his former life could never be the same. Part of him longed for adventure—but another resisted, reasoning that adventure only came his way by MI6.

"Alex!" Sean Walsh, a classmate called out to him. He and Sean shared a few classes and talked casually. They were loose friends. "Back again eh? What was it this time?"

"Stomach virus and infection," he answered back easily.

"Man, I don't envy your homework," Sean eyed the stack in his hands. "Going to take you awhile."

"Don't I know it," Alex smiled wanly.

--

**I LIVE! As usual totally craptastic chapter but this is the first time I've updated any story in months. So, yes, I'm still alive, though school has taken lots out of me. Total creativity-smusher. **

**Please review!**

**Review response:**

**SheWeapon1: Thanks!! Lol, she's very amusing but has quite the dark side to her. Oh yes Alex is getting jealous—but about what? Hee hee. The romance I'm still on the fence about…Must think of a shipping. Hope you enjoyed this chapter!**


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Alex absorbed what the receptionist told him quietly, glow of afternoon sun making his hair look golden. The inhabitants of room 567 had already gone, without so much as a goodbye. But they had been here only yesterday! Could it be that in the time he went to sleep, and school, they hatched a plan and left? Plan…MI6. They were sure to be keeping tabs on Kristen.

Saying thanks to the lady, Alex dashed out the door to call a cab. It wouldn't do to have two of his guests disappear in London. And somehow, he thought MI6 would know where they'd gone.

--

Kristen shouldered her pack determinedly. It was the first day of training, and she was determined not to look bad in front of the other SAS (whatever that was). Shen had been reverted to the hackers division since it was obvious he was better with technology that with action itself.

Today, they had to hike across the harsh, wet terrain and then swim across a pool designed to fit into the backround, have extreme, freezing, oceanlike waves, more than twenty-feet deep, and then monkey bar across a huge pit of freezing slime in less than an hour. Kristen had a feeling that Alex had endured something like this when he had been in training.

It had already been something like twenty minutes, and the only way Kristen could keep up with them was by sheer determination. She would _not_ be called inferior to them, not be inferior to Alex. So it was this that drove her.

Finally, she dropped into the pool, watching the rest of the group pull away. They were: Hawk, Eagle, Falcon, and Raptor. She was christened 'Chick', due to her age and because she was female.

The waves pushed at her, pushing so hard she almost went straight back to where she had dropped in. Kristen grunted, and then pushed out with her arms, and kicked with her legs. She made some progress, and then studied the waves, continuing forward. There seemed to be a break, roughly two seconds maybe, where the waves wouldn't be as hard as they would normally be. Taking advantage of that should be simple.

Eight minutes later she was hauling herself out of the freezing water, every muscle screaming in protest, to trek a short route towards the pit of slime. The wind blew hard, flipping her hair around crazily and making her speed up until she again caught sight of the group in front of her. Increasing her pace, she pushed herself harder, and eventually, another nine minutes later, caught up with them.

They had started already, and Kristen was the last climbing up to the monkey bars. Panting, she began to get into the swing, catch the bar, and swing again rhythm. _Fuck-! _She almost lost her grip swinging to the next slippery bar and looked down. The pale green slime oozed far below her and she hesitated before desperately dragging her eyes back up to the next bar. _I can do this. I can outdo Alex, can make Shen and my family proud. I can succeed, and destroy Scorpia, I can do this._

Her muscles burned like fire, and somehow it gave her even more energy. She completed five bars in a row quickly, but there were another 30 to go. Agonizingly, she swung, swung and swung and finally reached the end. Kristen slid off the last bar onto soggy earth gratefully a mere eleven minutes later. After pausing for a minute to catch her breath, she raced towards the finish line, where Sergeant Nichols stood, with a timer.

He nodded at her. "Nice Chick, 49 minutes twenty four seconds. Go on ahead."

She reached the shack where they were going to stay for the night where they were divvying up rations. Raptor, the one whom she perceived was head of the group, was already in bed while Hawk handed her the amount of food they were allowed. Shivering, she ate it all and was the first to fall asleep.

--

"What d'you mean, they're gone?" Alex demanded, after he shoved his way through security, not knowing that MI6 was expecting him and ready.

Blunt almost raised his eyebrows. Why exactly did Rider care about two people MI6 had picked up? "They left; she wanted to get back to the US and I can't say I blame her. Shen went with her."

"We're keeping tabs on them Alex," Mrs. Jones cut in firmly. "I don't expect someone who drops into Britain—much less, someone who could damage us severely—to fly off scot free. I expect the CIA will recruit her, if they get over the abnormalties of recruiting a teen."

"They didn't even tell me," Alex narrowed his eyes suspiciously. MI6 would definetly lie to him if they got the better end of it.

"Didn't want to say goodbye, I expect," Blunt said briskly. "I'll have you know though she's headed back to her native Chicago, in the Midwest, if that eases your mind."

"It doesn't, but thanks anyways." Scooting back his chair and not bothering to push it back in, Alex flung open the door and left.

--

At SAS Hacker headquarters, Shen concentrated on infiltrating an MI6 made program. Mrs. Jones and Alan Blunt had figured that Kristen would probably have to endure more than a few high security systems, and as Shen was better with technology than physical stuff, he was chosen to help.

He tapped a few keys on his Macbook Air. It was the laptop given to the hackers who would be traveling everywhere, fast. Anyways, they had added an extra harddrive that he was using.

A firewall popped up. Frowning, he hit 6699, the number he was using to override technical commands. The firewall died down, and he guessed a number of passwords before burrowing into the system. A small smile lit his face. Success, sweet success.

Just then, a defensive virus latched itself onto the hard drive, a few seconds after which a warning message appeared on the screen.

"Fuck," he muttered, now desperately tapping keys to get rid of the virus.

"Don't get too excited," his teacher droned. After a few more minutes, he had destroyed the virus and implanted software into the system that would keep him updated on its progress.

He had survived his first day of training.

--

Alex paced around in his room after leaving MI6 HQ. It wasn't that he felt Kristen and Shen would leave without saying goodbye—Kristen would do that without a thought—it was that the situation felt odd. MI6 would know exactly where they were headed, where they were now, and _why._ But they didn't.

Unless they did, and just weren't telling him. But then, what would be their motive? It just didn't make any sense.

Alex groaned and flopped down on his bed to contemplate the situation yet again.

--

_I'm not a princess, this ain't a fairy tale  
I'm not the one you sweep off her feet,  
Lead her up the stairwell,  
This ain't Hollywood, this is a small town,  
I was a dreamer before you went and let me down,  
Now it's too late for you,  
And your white horse, to come around…_

_It's too late for you and your white horse, to catch me now…_

Kristen woke with a start, the lyrics pounding into her head. For some reason, it had popped into her dreams, defining them. What the hell? She looked around and realized that it was still dark out, but getting lighter. She stretched, and then winced sharply as a dull pain in her arms and stomach area protested.

Her hazy mind screamed at her to go back to sleep, but she could not. The gears in her mind were turning, gaining speed and, shivering; she pulled off the thin blanket and lightly dropped down from the bunk.

_Begging for forgiveness, begging for me  
Just like I always wanted but I'm sooo sorry  
Cause I'm not your princess, this ain't a fairytale_…

The lyrics floated on, and she shook her head hard to get them out of her head. Any moment now and they could be called to another obstacle course, or worse. She had to be on guard.

Kristen's thoughts turned to Alex. How would he be taking the fact that they were gone? Angry? Good riddance? Happy? While she was sure that her feelings towards him was just of friends, anything could change at anytime. Especially when living in her world.

_Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa  
Try and catch me now  
Oh, it's too late  
To catch me now…_

Those damn lyrics! What the hell! It was like they were trying to tell her something, but no; a heartbroken song didn't apply to her at the time. She was going to blame it on exhaustion, from those damn exercises.

Kristen pulled on her wind-breaker, padding lightly outside to see the weather. It was a bleak, clear gray day, with harsh winds blowing hard. The sky still had streaks of pink and gold across it—a testament to the early hour. She leaned against the wooden outside wall, her thoughts trailing to her team. Hawk was the one who was slim, black haired, and more of the technology man. Kristen had seen him hack into the heating system earlier that night to turn it up. Eagle was the powerful, brown haired, wiry one who could break your face in one punch. Falcon was fair lean runner, who could eat up meters with just a few lopes; cunning, too. And Raptor. She thought he was the most dangerous, with his smooth talking, hardened body and quick instincts. It fit him well, that he was the leader.

The door creaked open and she whipped around, already in a ready stance when Hawk appeared in sight. Relaxing, she returned to her original position and sunk to the wooden steps.

Hawk spoke. "And why're you here, Chick?" he asked, with no real emotion. "You look about, 16, 17 years old? Why're you here instead of learning how to drive or something? What is Special Operations playing at?"

Kristen resisted the urge to laugh. "You want to ask them. I'm not close to 17 by the way. I'm 14."

The content in her sentence, and her boldly American accent made him reel.

"Why are you here then? Instead of fooling around like some other teenager?"

At his words, a faint, old song started to play in her head, as she was transported back in time to the suburbs of Chicago.

_Your voice was the soundtrack of my summer  
Do you know you're unlike any other?  
You'll always be my thunder, and I said  
Your eyes are the brightest of all the colors  
I don't wanna ever love another_

Bright blue summer days, shopping trips in cool, air conditioned malls, watching movies at the local AMC, lingerings of crushes, stressing over homework; it all flashed past her eyes in some sort of misty veil. It was like a past life.

_You'll always be my thunder  
So bring on the rain  
And bring on the thunder, and I said_  
_Your voice was the soundtrack of my summer  
Do you know you're unlike any other?  
You'll always be my thunder  
So bring on the rain  
Oh baby bring on the pain  
And listen to the thunder_

Why _was_ she here? Why couldn't she just go back home—but she already knew the answer to that. Her family was gone, her friends thought she was dead. She had nothing to go back to.

"Alex Rider," she said finally. "Because of him."

Hawk searched his mind for the faint recollective spark the name had on him. Rider? He knew it was something important…but no, he would ask the squad later. It was obvious Chick had said enough and wouldn't tell him any more now. She was staring at the grey clouds, with an unreadable expression on her face.

She did seem well-suited for this work though.

--

**I do not own the two songs whose lyrics are depicted in this chapter (White Horse: Taylor Swift and Thunder: Boys Like Girls) Enjoy this chapter? :D How was it? Do you like where this fic is going? I'm asking for two reviews before I update the next chapter please! I hope this is reasonable since I have at least 14 readers : )**

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**Kiss rocks god of thunder: Thank you!! **

**Sheweapon1: Thanks! Wow lol I think I am very predictable, you guessed correct; this is the SAS! I hope the rest of what I'm planning to do with this story isn't as easily predicted as this was lol. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Anything you recognize is not mine.**

**Chapter 10**

Feng swore when his _idiot_ messengers brought news that the traitor Shen, Kristen and the boy had disappeared under the wings of MI6. Dammit! But the messenger behind the first was the bearer of even worse news, frantically praying that Feng wouldn't shoot him. 

--

One of the men—Raptor—was listening to a hand-powered radio that he had to keep giving a crank or two now and then. Kristen was rubbing her arms to get rid of the goose bumps—damn the cold!—when she stiffened.

The government issued radio churned out a gravelly voice of a BBC broadcaster as he reported, "…with a mass amount of global arrests, spanning over three continents…no word yet on why…"

Kristen snorted, letting a satisfied smirk cross her face. Hawk saw it before it slid off her face. Did she and this Rider person have something to do with that? Why else would she have a smirk on her face?

She straightened, and left the cabin, shutting the door quietly behind her. Now.

"Have any of you heard of someone named Alex Rider?"

"Would he be related to a John Rider?" Falcon asked.

Hawk shrugged.

"Dunno him," the three chorused.

"Why d'you ask?" Eagle asked.

Hawk shrugged again. "Pried some information out of Chick earlier, and seems like she's here because of the guy."

"Maybe if we memo'ed Special Operations they'd know."

"Weren't they the ones who sent her here anyway? I wouldn't want to get in Special Op's way. 'Specially if they want to keep it hush hush."

"She'll be out in about two weeks anyways. In the real world then."

"How do they expect her to survive with that little training?"

The other men just shrugged, but before they could answer, the cabin door creaked open and Kristen popped her head into view.

"We need to leave. The sergeant wants us out _now_," she laid slight emphases on the last word.

All the men except for Hawk flinched at her voice, so different from their own. She withdrew and shut the door again.

"Blimey, what _are_ Special Operations thinking, using an American for this sort of work?" Raptor muttered, getting up and reaching for the door.

"Next thing you'll know, she'll have gone and gotten herself killed and _bloody hell_ the US government is swooping in on us like a bird on prey, and the tabloids having a field day."

They left the cabin and went to go see what new training they were going to be sent on.

--

Kristen was nervous like _hell_. Their new task was to scale a building, steal into a booby-trapped hall and snatch a leather satchel and she was to go first. Obviously, she'd never climbed before. She had no idea what to do.

It was supposed to be a 'team building' effort.

Hawk noticed her hesitation and showed her the basics of it, finding footholds, etc. They all roped themselves to each other securely and went in the order of their weight to the building; a relatively small specimen of twenty stories.

It was enough to scare the shit out of her. Taking a deep breath, she skimmed the brick with her fingers to find a hand hold. To her surprise, the area between each block was deep; it would be easier than she had thought to climb it. After she slammed the ice ax into the brick, she hoisted herself up and jammed her right toe into the hollowed out area of a brick beneath her; ascending a few more bricks until all five of them were on the wall.

Kristen felt the impact as Raptor—the stockiest of them—dug an ice ax into the material just in case they did fall.

Gritting her teeth and trying not to think about the height, she carried on. Soon, every time she pulled herself up burned, every muscle screaming and white hot pain burst into stars behind her eyes.

She kept going.

The only respite from the pain was the brief intervals where she waited for the other four to catch up.

Then, more pain as she hauled herself up and held herself there by her fingers holding on to her own ax stamped into the building. Everything went black and she closed her eyes, willing the darkness to _go away._ She didn't need this now!

It seemed like a like a lifetime until Raptor moved up a few more bricks.

And she had to ascend again.

--

During the time that Kristen was putting herself through the worst torture of her life, Alex and Jack were having a serious discussion.

"I don't know where they are! I want to know why they've gone," Alex was trying to prevent himself from snarling. Jack didn't seem to understand that, whatever had happened between the three teens, he still wanted to make sure they were all right. That MI6 hadn't gotten to them like they had to him.

"Alex, I don't see why you have to," she answered levelly. "That Kristen girl was as welcoming as a morgue, and it wasn't like the guy was a choir boy. You promised—swore that you'd get out of the business. Why're you poking your nose back in when it isn't even your life at stake?"

Alex bit back a snarky reply. There was something incredibly infuriating about the whole situation and he didn't know what, didn't know why; and that just aggravated him further. Without another word, he turned, wrenched open the front door and let it bang shut behind him.

His own house wasn't a refuge anymore.

--

One week, five days. Kristen was counting down the days until she could just get the hell out of here and start on a whirlwind storm of payback. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned? Try a ruthless teen with nothing but revenge on her mind.

Hell would welcome her as their new Ice Queen.

Kristen didn't notice her thinning lips, or that her eyes, already so close to black, flashed with anger and grew even darker. She didn't notice the set look that said she would square off with anyone, or more likely telling them to go to hell.

The men did though. What Eagle saw there didn't belong on any face—except perhaps the devils; much less someone as obviously young as her. He wondered how, and why, that look was on her face. Why she already seemed to weigh down with experience that didn't fit her years. With a silent curse, he pulled his attention back to the task at hand—staying away from her. It wasn't any of his business, and within a few days, she would be gone.

Eagle just wasn't sure if that was relief or disappointment coloring his thoughts.

--

Kristen had thought that the building was a huge skyscraper by the time they had climbed inside of it. By the way her arms ached when she tested flexing it, her body thought that too.

Eagle had booted up his laptop to hack into the security and see what was out there to warn them. Hawk was working on deactivating most of them; some could not be removed without causing suspicion though.

Finally, the alarms deactivated, they padded lightly to the hub of the tower.

Kristen held her breath as they moved in.

--

Surprisingly, it had gone rather well. Raptor and Falcon had covered for them as Hawk, Eagle and she had slinked into the security vault. She'd had to hold up a device that aimed invisible lasers around so that when they stole the bag, their bodies wouldn't have triggered the alarm. Kristen had wondered why they chose her to do that when it was an important job and they were both taller than she was; meaning they could have held it higher or she could have gotten the satchel more easily than they could have.

But she wasn't here to question what the men in her team did.

Besides, she didn't really care. What she did care about was seeing the destruction of Scorpia, and having the satisfaction of knowing that she'd played a part in it.

That was her goal, the only reason she was here, the only cause worth fighting for. Maybe later she'd find more, but for now, this would have to do.

--

Alex closed his eyes and saw Kristen's face swim into view, half-smile intact, eyes dancing with humor or mischief.

Her voice, telling him about her own life…Shen's voice, telling Alex about Kristen herself…

When she had worn a dress and he had broken into Feng's apartments…

The memories rushed like a tidal wave, surprising him with its force.

He couldn't even remember Sabina, his closest girl friend's own facial expressions, but he remembered the two black-haired teens' dark good looks like they were his own.

Why?

He didn't know.

What he did know was that his gut was telling him that yes; there was something strange and bad going on with the two of them.

He knew that MI6 was going to be at the heart of it.

He knew that Kristen had done it willingly.

He didn't know why.

He didn't know why Shen was going along with it.

And he didn't know _why_ Kristen was working with them.

Hell be damned if he didn't bloody well find out.

If MI6 wouldn't help him, at least his good friend Smithers would, and value his personal loyalty.

It was too bad he would have to keep missing school.

Jack's words suddenly blared in his mind.

_Why're you poking your nose back in when it isn't even your life at stake_?

Alex knew why, but he didn't want to share with her; afraid of what she would say.

But maybe he did care too much about those two people.

--

The messenger fairly bolted from the room as Feng barked out curt, harsh orders in retaliation to the fact that Kristen and Shen had disappeared. Alex Rider was under the shadows of MI6's authority. No way that the Triads could get at them now.

But Feng never forgot.

He never forgave.

He always got even.

And the deepest circle of Hell was reserved for traitors.

Where ever those three were, he would find them, and wreak the full power of the Triads on them.

Vengeance was indeed sweet.

--

**WOW that took me forever. Seriously! WTF!**

**Reviews pleaaaaase?**

**P.S. I hate how I have like 25 people reading this but one person reviewing…**

**Review reply:**

**KlutzyQT: Thanks.**

**SheWeapon1: Well they can't both be doing the same thing can they? : ) Alex will definetly make an appearance, but I can't say how soon…I hope this chapter answered a few questions : )**


	11. Chapter 11

Kristen was on her last day of SAS training. The two weeks had toughened her body, hardened her resolve, trained her mind and blessed her with agility.

Anticipation made her fingers tingle though, as her team faced one last challenge: Get through a hallway of fire-bombs and swinging guillotines, dismantle an unknown explosive and get the hell out of there in less than 15 minutes. Oh, and they had to dodge invisible lasers of security—if the alarm was sounded, they'd have less than 5 minutes left no matter where they were.

They stood in the start of the hallway, waiting for the buzzer to blare and for them to start. She and Hawk were supposed to be going second, after Raptor scouted. Eagle and Falcon would follow, after they hacked into the security to see what other surprises they had in store for them. In fact, that was what the two of them were doing now, while Kristen, Hawk and Raptor had surveyed the obstacles for at least four minutes.

It would be hard. The fireballs were thrown out of the walls at seemingly random intervals, and the guillotines were placed every five feet. Even from where she stood, the oscillating blades looked wicked sharp.

Raptor blinked as the puzzle clicked into place. Every three and a half seconds, a fireball would be thrown. But it was every 7 seconds that a guillotine would swing; due to the fact it was so heavy and broad.

He relayed the fact to Chick and Hawk, telling them to tell Falcon and Eagle. The clock on the wall told him he had a minute left.

"Falcon, Eagle, you have about 2 minutes before you have to bloody well be in the hallway at least. I'll be gone soon; Hawk will tell you the intervals of time you'll have to get past. Wish me luck."

"_Bon chance,_" he vaguely heard Chick mutter before the buzzer drowned out every noise and he dove into the fray.

Raptor ducked one fireball and skidded, nearly running into a guillotine as another firebomb exploded and his pant leg caught on fire. Thank god Falcon had disabled the security lasers for this hall; it was already quite a challenge. Hastily, he jumped through the path of the guillotine to the other side and beat out the fire. Looking back, he saw Chick and Hawk coming through the haze of smoke and swearing, sped up.

Hawk had yanked Kristen out of the way of an incoming fireball just in time and they leaped through the guillotine's way to hit the ground as another firebomb detonated.

Kristen had landed on bottom, and, eyes widening, had pushed him up as another fireball flew just past where his head had been in between their bodies. As soon as that had exploded when it hit the wall, causing debris to fly everywhere, Hawk pulled her up and waited for the guillotine to reach the high point on the other side.

Falcon and Eagle had now also entered the deteriorating hall in the space of three and a half minutes since they'd started. Raptor was now already almost at the end of the hall—Hawk gestured to Kristen to hurry up from two guillotines ahead. Gritting her teeth and throwing herself down again to army crawl; she dodged more fireballs and timed the guillotines correctly so that she caught up with him and Raptor two more minutes later.

The last two computer savvies reached them in thirty more seconds, by which Kristen had found the explosives and Raptor starting in on disentangling the wires. Eagle took it over from there, checking the timer and the amount of time the bomb had left.

Taking out a pair of "snips", Falcon re-checked the wires one more time before easing the red one into the crossing of the snip blades. Kristen held her breath and he pressed down.

Thank god all that happened was the digital clock's numbers blinking out.

Two and a half more minutes had passed, and they still needed to get out the same way they'd gotten in. By now, they only had six and a half more minutes, with the seconds trickling away.

And the firebombs were still exploding, the guillotines still swinging. Glancing at the clock, Raptor took off and leapt across a blade's path. Behind him, Eagle accidentally tripped Kristen—surprisingly easy to push off balance, for all of her height— who went careering straight towards a swinging executioner. As Eagle tried to dive and help her, she turned a somersault and ducked a couple more bombs as she crossed the blade's path.

Catching up to her, Eagle muttered a quick apology.

"Its fine," she answered, checking both ways before crossing another guillotine.

They'd wasted a whole minute on the exchange, with only about five minutes left.

The other men slipped past and then it was all over with three minutes to spare. The buzzer blared again, stopping the time.

Kristen hesitantly turned to the men in her team, knowing it was probably the last time they'd ever see each other.

"Alright. It's been nice going out here, but I'm pretty sure that I have to leave either today or tomorrow. And I don't know when I'll be able to say goodbye, so I'll be doing that now. Thanks Raptor, Eagle, Hawk, Falcon," she turned to each of them as she named them. "You've all taught me a lot, even if you don't know it. Keep in touch—or not?" Kristen offered her hand, and shook all of theirs with a smile quirking at her lips.

"What if we want to contact you?" Hawk asked suddenly.

She blinked. "Special Operations should know."

Sergeant Nichols soon appeared.

"Good work. Now, just get to your new cabin—across the forest. You'll be assigned something else tomorrow. As for you, Chick, you'll have to come with me."

"Guess this is goodbye," she actually grinned at the four of them. "I'll be seeing you. Maybe."

The four of them murmured that she wasn't as bad as they'd originally thought—bloody Americans might be bat shit crazy but loyal—, shifting uneasily as they did so and soon headed for the forest.

Kristen couldn't stop smiling as she watched them walk away, and the Sergeant cut in her reverie.

"Come with me. You'll be heading back to London."

With that, she turned her back on her former comrades, followed Sergeant Nichols to his Jeep and was driven off to the nearest subway to be shuttled off to MI6.

Hopefully, the men might actually kind of miss her.

--

It wasn't the train ride that was so freaky. It was that pretty soon, she'd be briefed on the mission for Chad. And she'd meet back up with Shen. Nerves would be the end of her.

Finally, the train skidded to a stop in London, and she got off, feeling vaguely apprehensive. There was supposed to be someone waiting for her, but she didn't have any more details than that.

Her eyes swept the crowd, looking for….anything really. Anything MI6 looking-ish. A man in a black suit caught her eye. It wasn't that the suit was out of the ordinary, it was just that—the ordinariness. His hair was a muddy shade of brown, and his sunglasses were so generic, his appearance so inconspicuous that it _was_ conspicuous. _Definetly MI6_, Kristen thought.

She started making her way towards him, effectively cutting through the crowd to the corner where the man was. Formerly inactive, leaning against the wall, he straightened and seemed to watch her as she headed towards him,

When Kristen finally reached him, he asked, "Ms. Chang?"

"That would be me," she responded dryly.

"I'm your escort. Please follow me."

With that, he turned and she did indeed follow him outside to a black car. Again, the model looked like any of thousands in London, with no license plates.

Opening the door of the four-seater, the escort let her into the backseat, shut it firmly and got into the driver's seat to get them to MI6.

The ride there was silent, Kristen mainly looking out the window. Now, she had to prepare herself for Chad, hoping to death that Shen would be able to come with her. That would be the first step to revenge.

The driver parallel parked the car in front of Royal & General bank, coming to her side to open the door for her and she stepped out. The day was an overcast one, the sun a sort of pale light peeking from between gray clouds, she noted as she pulled open the glass doors of Royal & General and walked in.

It was exactly how she remembered it, and Kristen kept walking towards the glass offices of Mrs. Jones and Alan Blunt.

"Kristen!" Blunt greeted her satisfactorily. "I see that you've survived SAS training. You should feel proud in yourself—that's one of the highest levels of preparation in the United Kingdom. And I think only Alex and yourself are the only people of your age to go through it."

Great, because she totally needed to be reminded of Alex at the moment.

"Where's Shen?" Kristen asked, by way of answering.

"He should be here soon," Mrs. Jones answered. "How was your training?"

_Why are they being so friendly?_

"Decent. Do you have any new information on Chad?'

"I'm assuming you know of their president, Idriss Déby?"

"Yes." No, she didn't, but to show any weakness was deadly. And she could always read up on him later.

"He's been the subject of numerous coup attempts since 1990. He really does have a fragile hold on power. And he's paranoid that he will be overthrown—which he does have good reason too, there was a coup attempt that would have been successful only a few years ago—and the country is not in that great shape. That's why Scorpia expects their help to be strictly under the table, covertly felicitous and minimal. Therefore, they've put less than half their normal effort in."

_Is this supposed to reassure me?_

When Kristen didn't reply, Blunt's gaze hardened and he glanced at the newcomer closing the door behind him.

"Ah, Shen," he smiled widely. But it was still a smile without feeling.

Shen barely acknowledged him, his eyes analyzing Kristen to see if she was alright.

If there was anyone else in the room, they wouldn't have noticed anything different in her reaction.

But Mrs. Jones and Alan Blunt weren't "anyone else". They noticed the slight relaxation of her posture, the half degree's warmth in her eyes.

Now they could begin making real progress.

"You'll be flown to Chad today," Blunt continued as if nothing had happened. "And, since the coup is scheduled for October 29th, you'll have about a week and a half to observe, and let us know of the ones who would carry out the coup. If you take down Levi Kroll, that would be so much the better."

"You want us to protect their President, keep tabs on all the people who could, or would want to kill him." Shen repeated slowly, making sure he got it right. The insolent glare he added was just to let them know, that even with pretty much zero funds, he didn't jump for anyone.

Even the heads of MI6 Special Operations.

"Yes," Mrs. Jones met his eyes. "I'm sure that you'll agree with that."

"We accept," Kristen said calmly, her voice softer than the others' voices, yet just clear.

"Good. Head up to the 5th floor. Smithers will give you all the equipment you need."

The two dark-haired teens stood, not bothering to push in their chairs, and left the room.

Blunt asked his second in command, "Well? What d'you think? Do we have a success on our hands?"

Mrs. Jone's eyes still lingered on Kristen's retreating back.

"That Kristen Chang is a loose cannon."

Blunt almost looked impatient. "So is Alex Rider. And we know his success rate."

"She and Shen are valuable to us."

"As is Alex."

"What I'm saying is that those two are even more precious because they don't realize how much in demand they are," Mrs. Jones responded almost tartly. "For all their knowledge, for their skills, and that they've trained in China _and_ here."

"We still don't know the girl's real motives."

"And couldn't we find out?"

A satisfied expression came across Blunt's face. "They've worked together well before. It should work."

"When do we send him in?"

"When there's two days left. Any earlier, they could abandon the original plan. Any later, he risks not being in top form."

"Then it's decided?"

"Yes. It's decided. We'll brief him after they've flown."

"What makes you think he'll say yes?"

Blunt glanced at Mrs. Jones strangely. "Haven't you noticed the way he's looked at Chang?"

Understanding dawned and she simply smiled.

**--**

**Another chapter! And I'll be gone for like 1 ½ weeks, so I can't read all your reviews (sad face). **

**Hey guys, check out my brand-new homepage! It's in my profile page, just click on my name and it'll have "homepage" and a link. Let me know what you think. Also, should I put pictures of how I think my characters should look like?**

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**SheWeapon1: You probably know where I'm going with this fic now xD! Do you like this chapter? **


	12. Chapter 12

Kristen and Shen had landed in the Chad N'Djamena airport—right in the capital of the country. As opposed to being scared like hell, or even nervous, they were both relatively calm—sort of like calm before the storm—showing only slight irritation at the heat when they were chauffeured to a nearby hotel.

Ten minutes later, after changing into black slacks and polos, they were picked up by the area's MI6 leader, and brought to their headquarters in another fake bank. This one was all steel and bullet proof glass, with sleek black furniture and stainless steel appliances.

A man dressed in a black suit, grey-green sunglasses and a blank expression was seated behind a black desk, waiting for them.

"You already know you are to bodyguard Chad's president," the man informed them as they were showed into the room and sat down.

"But you don't know the main insurgent leaders, except for Scorpia. Levi Kroll heads this operation, flanked with Dominique Trenton and Angel Muyers. Trenton is a highly dangerous individual—proficient in modern warfare, and a prized strategist. He was born in Romania, and is now around 31 years old. Muyers on the other hand, is a sort of body guard. Very thickset, not all that intelligent, but loyal and strong. He's of Mexican descent, and is 26 years old—involved in some of their drug cartels as well; good connections."

"Is the reason you are giving us this information so that we can shoot them?" Kristen asked her voice as soft and calm as ever.

"We would prefer that it not come to that," the man answered from behind his sunglasses. "Interrogation is a high priority. But if worst comes to worst, something more…covert would be preferable."

"An execution style death then," Kristen bantered.

"If you must," he nodded stiffly.

She smiled thinly, having won the tangle. It gave her small comfort though.

"As I was saying," the man continued. "You will first do surveillance duty for about three days, get a feel for the environment. You will be staying at a nearby hotel—close to the capital building. You must get Chad's president out of the coup's way as quickly and effectively as possibly, without letting Scorpia know that you're here. If you would continue down the elevator and turn on your left, gadgets are going to be supplied to you. Good luck."

Sensing the clear dismissal, Kristen headed out the glass and steel doors, followed by Shen, to where they were directed.

A woman wearing khaki shorts and a white polo, as well as flip flops met their eyes through the doors. She was busy tampering with one of those hand held plastic fans that you had to wave to cool yourself, muttering. She finally snapped a piece of plastic in place and squeezed the sides—out shot something that blew up a potted plant she had aimed at and she laughed delightedly.

Kristen shot a look at Shen as she pulled open the doors and stepped coolly inside.

The woman looked up, and rose to greet them.

"Nice to meet you, hello! And you must be Ms. Chang and Mr…?"

"Zhang," Shen muttered, unfazed by the question and the woman's cheery demeanor.

"And you are?" Kristen asked.

"Yolanda," the newly introduced woman answered. "Yolanda Pierce. And I understand that you're operating on a tight schedule, so let's move! Firstly, you'll notice that it's _hot_ out here. Therefore, you, Ms. Chang, get to have on hand this delightful folding fan. It looks tacky, for American tourists in China, but watch. Once you open it and clasp the ends together, out comes razor sharp metal that should cut through anyone and anything. I can tell you we didn't have a nice clean time testing this."

Yolanda handed the cheap piece of black plastic to Kristen, and then pulled out a fancy, heavy silver fountain pen.

"This is for you, Mr. Zhang. You'll need a pen to look half-way business like, and this is it. Be careful with the type of ink you write with! If you twist the cap left, it'll be regular ink. But if you twist it right—out comes acid. It's poisonous too, if you really have to get rid of someone."

Then, she proffered what looked like a jewelry case to Kristen, who opened it. "Earring bombs?" she asked, having used something similar before.

"But of course. Don't worry, they weren't that expensive. Reattach the earring to the backings within a ten second frame, or they'll blow up. They aren't that powerful, but they will cause a nice little distraction all the same."

Lastly, she turned back to Shen. "Here's an iPod. It's only the third of its kind, so we'd like if you could report back on it afterwards. It's for eavesdropping—turn on a Beatles' song and you'll be able to hear everything within a 30 foot radius. Turn on any other music—well, it'll just play as normal. Now off you go!"

Bemusedly, the two agents were ushered out of the room and taken back to their hotel, where they were to lay low for a few hours before staking out the capital building.

"Nice place, this is," Shen commented without any real interest as he watched TV. Kristen had been walking around the huge suite, in the white and grey marble and stainless steel applianced kitchen and bath, the two big beds and decent sized closet.

"Yes, it's very nice," she muttered. "Did you notice that the only clothes MI6 sent us were black and white?"

Shen glanced at her, amused. "It doesn't really matter does it, seeing as you only wear black anyways?"

Kristen rolled her eyes and ignored that. "What are we doing later anyways?"

"I've got to put up those tiny cameras in the entrance lobby. No big deal, of course no one will spot me climbing up the walls like friggen Spiderman to install the stupid things," he answered, dripping sarcasm.

Kristen ignored that. "Blueprints?"

"Here,'' Shen tossed her a satchel.

She unzipped it to find the blueprints, and blinked at the huge roll of blue paper inside.

"Never mind then."

Glancing over, Shen took the roll and started studying them.

Bored, she flopped down next to Shen, and subsequently fell asleep.

--

"Dude, wake up," the voice snuck into her sleep and someone was shaking her hard. Oh, but just one more minute…

Sighing, Shen resorted to his last hope…tickling. "Nmmm!" she grabbed her pillow and whacked Shen with it. "I'm awake dammit!" Kristen rubbed her eyes and ran a hand through her hair.

"About time woman," he muttered, chucking the pillow back at her. "You have five minutes to get your ass ready for infiltration."

Grumbling, she threw the gadgets into her pockets, straightened her clothes and checked herself out in the mirror.

Decent, for waking up two minutes ago.

Kristen finger combed her hair again, and turned to Shen, who was already decked out in sunglasses and the rest of their black wardrobe.

He looked her over.

"You need a haircut," he muttered, tossing her a pair of obviously expensive sunglasses and ushering her out the room.

"Not on your life," she threw back, remembering the last time she'd gotten a haircut. Oh sweet baby Jesus, she was _not_ doing that again.

Walking through the hotel's doors, Chad welcomed them with a blast of hot, humid air and she winced. Hot and dry she could handle, but hot and humid absolutely killed her.

"Come on, let's get to the building before I stab myself."

Having reached said building, they keyed a side door that presumably only maintenance men used, and snuck inside to the janitor's office. There, they donned the spare uniforms—that were hugely baggy on them—and brought a ladder out into the lobby with a feather duster. Kristen silently thanked god Shen had been looking over the blueprints as she slept.

Cool air conditioning greeted them, as well as marble flooring, pillars, whatever. It looked like a huge block of grayish white ice cream.

"Cameras?" Kristen asked as they rolled the huge ladder towards the very front doors. Behind Shen, she could see the receptionists getting a bit antsy.

"Hurry up," she hissed, as he began climbing the ladder with the duster in hand. Kristen wondered if janitors even did that sort of thing as she pretended to steady the ladder.

Shen was taking the stickers off the back of the self adhesive tiny cameras, sticking them to the window, the ledge, anything that would give them a 360 view of the main hall.

But soon they would have to creep through the halls.

Grinning, Shen stepped off the ladder. Kristen wheeled it back into the office, and the receptionists warily let them by, into the heart of the building. They kept their heads down, janitor caps pulled low and hurried through.

"Right, you take that way, I take this way," he muttered. "Circle back here once you're done."

"What if we're caught?"

"Get the hell out any way you can."

"Alright," they set off.

Kristen worked fast, peeling off the stickers off the backs of those cameras which were barely half the size of her pinky nail, and sticking them either really high or low—where no one would notice—evenly spaced about 4 or 5 feet apart.

She was almost done with the vast amount of corridors when she froze, hearing footsteps and muffled voices coming towards her. Oh damn!

Quickly, she tried a few doors. They were locked. But finally, she found one that wasn't—it was a small kitchen, intended for creating snacks for diplomatic meetings.

Right after walking in, she promptly smacked into a refrigerator placed at a very odd angle and swore.

The voices hushed—the footsteps came faster and directly at her this time.

Just in time, she opened a cabinet and squeezed in, careful not to clang any of the metal pots and pans together and held her breath.

After what seemed like an eternity, the person left. Kristen got out, and went back to the entrance hall to meet back up with Shen and leave.

--- _A few days later_

This was it. Their surveillance and intelligence was telling Shen and Kristen that the coup was _today._ They had hours to get Chad's President out of harm's way and get rid of the men attempting the coup.

They had no idea that their backup, a certain Alex Rider, had been delayed in setting off for them. So delayed, that he might only reach N'Djamena after all the events occurred. And that would make him _too late._

They were inside the Capital building now, where the President was due to arrive any second. It was this building that was to be bombed, this building where the ambitious leaders of the coup hoped to finally see all their plans come together.

Somehow, the two of them needed to get a note to everyone in the building to evacuate. Especially the President though.

Turning her head, Kristen spotted a few of the President's inferiors running around.

"If we can get the message to them, maybe they'll tell the President," she told Shen.

He agreed that it was worth a shot, and when one of them went running to get coffee—"Mocha, not decaf, MOCHA!"—they dragged him into a closet.

"Alright, listen up," Kristen calmly pointed a revolver at him, and his face instantly paled, "Don't worry, I won't shoot you. I need you to get everyone to evacuate the building."

There was only a look of confusion on the man's face.

Shen lifted his eyes to the heavens. "Oh damn. I bet he speaks French."

Kristen gave it a try with her first level French. "_Parlez-vous français_?"

He nodded his head vigorously.

"Damn," Kristen muttered. "I can't say 'evacuate the building, _s'il vous plait_,' in French. At least, not without a good explanation."

Shen had his laptop out. "Alright, Google, prove your translator works." He punched in a few phrases, and showed it to the man.

"I bet you it won't even be proper French."

"He'll get the jist of it."

The screen read, _Évacuer le bâtiment, ou tout le monde, il sera en mourir_.

"I'm _pretty sure_ that's not right," Kristen muttered.

The man widened his eyes again, and sputtered, "_Non, c'est impossible! Non—no—_"

"OK, then how the hell do we get everyone out?" Shen muttered. "This dipshit is saying that it's impossible."

"An alarm," Kristen suggested calmly. "Use those hacker skills and set off a fire alarm or something."

"How much time do we have?"

"Three hours and counting…_down_."

"Fine."

Kristen let the poor man go after telling him to get the President as far away from the building as possible, and he scurried away. Soon though, Shen's terrible time at MI6's training paid off. A loud, obnoxious alarm began blaring and people began screaming and running as the water sprinklers turned on.

"That works," she muttered.

"Kroll and his cronies are definetly here, so let's get going," Shen was checking out all the cameras. "While we can get them. Oh—they're at the top floor. Alright, let's go."

They exited the closet silently, soaked within seconds, and took the stairs up to what looked to be a definite face off.

At the airport, Alex waited for a cab to take him to the Capital building. When MI6 had approached him, he'd been ready to reject—until he heard whom it concerned. Kristen. And Shen.

MI6 wanted him to make sure they succeeded. While he had no doubt that they would, he was going to be there.

Finally, a taxi pulled up. It brought him to a massive building with equally massive chaos outside, what with people running around, with—water stains on them?— and an alarm blaring outside. Alex paid the driver, and, slipping out of the car, slipped into the building.

If Shen was still watching the cameras he had planted, he would have seen Alex Rider coming. But he wasn't—he and Kristen were after Trenton and Muyers. Kristen ducked a bullet that Muyers had fired, and leaped onto his back, and with a quick jerk of her hand and powerful cut towards his pressure points, Muyers was knocked out. Leaving Shen to deal with them, Kristen headed the opposite direction to get Kroll.

Shen fired a single shot to the back of Trenton's calf and he went down, screaming with the pain and rolling in the pools of water.

Showing no emotion, Shen stripped the two criminals of their clothes down to their boxers and, handcuffing them together, locked them into the same closet he and Kristen had been in.

Then he went looking for Kristen.

Alex ran into Levi Kroll, who cursed and ducked back the other way. But then there was Kristen, who had a gun in her hand, finger on the trigger and steadily advancing.

"You wouldn't shoot," Kroll tried to bluff it out. "You're a kid. You and Rider. Neither one of you could shoot me."

Kristen smiled that type of smile that made the Artic seem like the Sahara. The water was still pouring, effectively plastering her hair and clothes to her body, giving her a dangerous look. "Try me. I'll call your bluff and we'll see whose laughing then."

Alex could barely contain his relief, but it disappeared when Kroll knocked through a glass conference room, roaring like a bull elephant that had lost a contest of masculinity.

Kristen sprang into action, dropping the gun so she could use both hands, kneeing Kroll in the balls and punching him in the face. As soon as that happened, she stripped off his fancy suit, just in case there was anything he could use to get him away from her. And finally, she handcuffed him to the chair, blindfolding him using a piece of Alex's shirt

Kristen breathed in hard when she realized that now would be the time to kill him, to exact her revenge, for both herself and her family. Alex saw it in her eyes.

"Kristen," he grabbed her arm, "Don't. He's not worth getting a murder sentence for."

Her dark eyes, now even darker, rose up to his, and he could see down into her soul, her own personal abode. It frightened him, to see her so raw, and uncomposed.

She took a step closer to him. "I have to Alex," she murmured, her voice soft, on the verge of breaking. "I need to. All of them—all of Scorpia."

"No, you don't, you can just—"

Kristen had had a feeling that he would say something like that. Taking another step forward, now so close she could feel his breath, and dragging one of her own through her lungs, her lips crashed onto his, and god, he tasted good. Warm, and strong…

His arm cocked around her body, and her right hand felt for the gun in his back pocket, ignoring the blasts of water that pumped from above.

He stiffened, catlike reflexes kicking in and reaching for the gun, but she pressed herself even more forcefully against him, left arm pinning both of his to his body, eyes shutting halfway as she aimed behind his back and pulled the trigger.

They broke apart soon after the gunshot sounded, lips each bruised, swollen, pulsing.

"You only kissed me to get the gun," he accused her, with almost hurt pushing through his eyes.

"No. I've wanted to do that for a long while now," she answered quietly. "The gun was just a bonus."

He didn't answer that before she walked over to the man tied to the chair. The perfect shot had smashed through his heart, instantly leaving him dead. Alex had already known she was a crack shot.

"You got your revenge."

She didn't answer as MI6 agents swarmed in.

--

They were being questioned in different rooms, back in London. Alex could see her—perfectly relaxed—through the glass wall. He thought back to when they were in that room in Chile:

_Her eyes were dark, darker than he'd ever seen them._

"_You only kissed me to get the gun," he accused her._

"_No, I've wanted to do that for a long while now."_

What did that mean? But what about Sabina? What about the fact that they were practically working for MI6, were only 14, were living in so much damned _danger? _"Alright that's all Alex, thank you," Blunt said. "You can go home now. We'll send Shen and Kristen along when they're done."

He opened the door and left, stealing another glance at the back of Kristen's head as he went.

When he got home, Sabina was there, looking amazing in a dark red sweater and tight blue jeans. She mobbed him, pulling him into a tight embrace.

"How're you here?" he asked, stunned. Coincidence much?

"Oh, school let us off early for Thanksgiving break. Dad wanted to come back here to interview some people who're building the Olympics stuff."

"Cool," he murmured, gently disentangling him. She pulled him back in for another hug though, as Shen and Kristen walked in, and then pressed her lips to his.

_What's with all these girls and kissing me?_

Kristen smirked, Shen wolf-whistled.

"You busy Alex? Cause I'm hungry," Kristen yawned.

--

_Later—_

She was by herself, dwelling on the moment she walked into Alex's house, seeing him entwined around his friend Sabina. The image was burned into her eyes.

Well of course he wouldn't like her, Kristen; they were only working together because of crime. That was all good, but then she had been stupid and let herself actually like him.

And seeing him kiss Sabina, so soon after she herself had kissed him, hurt like hell.

She'd pasted on a fake smirk, but she was getting out of this. She didn't trust MI6—there was nothing stopping them from sending her on a suicide mission, nothing to prevent them from using her, hurting her, making her work with him. It would be better if she didn't like him—dammit, they were spies, they were 14; they were in a world that they shouldn't be in. It was too dangerous, with such high stakes and these big time players. The CIA would be better; protect her at least, from Scorpia. She would be without a weakness.

She was going home.

--

"D'you know why you'll always be better at this sort of thing than I will ever be?" Kristen asked softly. They were standing on his porch, inches away from each other and letting the soft blackness cover them like a blanket.

"Why?" he asked. Alex had an odd sensation that the way she said it—what she was talking about—was very final.

"Because," she answered. "You don't feel the guilt that I do. Every life taken, you consider it done, and move on; every thing you've done, you move on. I don't. I remember. You let go. You can survive without the guilt, but I can't. I have nightmares, sometimes, about the people—what I've done…You, though, you can ride it out, and you can survive. That's why…" she let the sentence trail.

Alex couldn't say anything. His throat was closing up, he couldn't speak, couldn't stop what was coming…

"I need to save myself from this…from you," she whispered, cutting off any thing he might've said, and pressed her lips to his in a last, forceful goodbye.

Breaking apart from the dizzying force that she was, he called, "Krist—"

She had vaulted over the railing and loped over to a car waiting for her. Shen was already inside. The black door opened, Kristen got in and it drove off, leaving him behind in the dust.

--

**Let me know what you think about this super long chapter! I fused the original chapter with another scene that I'd been writing for awhile. Like the change of events, where the plot's going? I have to say that the story is wrapping up. I think****…hmm maybe like 4 chapters MAXIMUM it's going to be over. I'm not delving into book 8, 9, 10—this is just until Alex / Kristen are happy. PLEASE review and let me know what you think!**

**Review Reply:**

**SheWeapon1: Hehe...I hope you really liked this chapter, it totally changes the focus of the story in my opinion!!  
**


	13. Chapter 13

**AUTHOR'S NOTE, DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU: This chapter contains SEX. Not graphic as I've seen more graphic content on this site than this is, but SEX. The rating for this story is now going to be changed to an M.**

**--**

**Alex thought about her often. She was the only ghost who kept haunting his sweetly tortured dreams—the angel he woke up to, the reason he couldn't sleep sometimes for thinking about her. But she was also gone—two long, empty years was testament to that. She was the reason he and Sabrina had failed, the reason he could barely look at other girls without seeing her. And her smile was the one thing he dreamed of achieving again above all else.**

He went through school almost mechanically now. MI6 hadn't called on him for months after she'd left, and he had only been on three missions after that. It was a pity, because missions were the only thing breaking up his now monotonous life without the answers that he wanted.

The days blended together, and he made friends, hung out at the mall, became a normal teen again. But he found it left him wanting the thrill of adventure, the addicting adrenaline again.

He only hoped that she was satisfied.

--

Two years ago, she could be called anything but naïve. The Triads had stolen what was left of her childhood, her innocence, and she had had to grow up fast. And there wasn't anything left to do, but improve.

Kristen closed her eyes; she could almost taste it. Sweet victory, sweet vengeance. After flying to Washington DC with Shen, they'd been brought into CIA headquarters, and miraculously, Kristen had gotten them to hire her. As an agent or whatever else they wanted her to be.

At the moment, an assassin.

But an assassin was the sole role she had been playing for the past two years, and she was damned good.

Her eyes opened again, and she crouched from the rooftop that she was on, peering through the gun's marker. Silently, she rotated the gun's point until the crosser marked the victim's heart, and squeezed the trigger.

Dr. Three, the final remaining Scorpia executive, the formerly super-powered organization's torture master was gunned down at 14:05 in Paris, February 13th.

As Kristen disappeared and mass confusion erupted in the neighboring building, she was taken back two years in her memory.

She and Shen on a mission.

Scorpia executive board member Levi Kroll.

Alex, appearing when he shouldn't have.

Her, distracting him and shooting the bullet.

A car veers into her path, and she opens door to the backseat, gets in and the driver hits the pedal and races off.

"Happy birthday, Alex."

--

A few days later, she found herself in a darkening skied London, after having gotten a vacation from Mr. Smith, the CIA equivalent to Alan Blunt. She smiled suddenly, and pulled down the hood of her black and white sweatshirt down to her eyes as the taxi drew closer to a certain address.

It stopped; she got out and paid the driver a few banknotes. When he made to find the difference, she said, "Keep the change," and walked away from the cab. The sun had set; the sky was a cool blue-grey now.

Kristen took a deep breath as she went up the steps and rang the doorbell, smoothing out her navy skinny jeans and forcing herself not to tap her black and white Converse clad feet.

Jack Starbright answered the door.

Kristen flipped her hood back and said, "Hello Jack. Mind if I come in?"

The housekeeper was stunned at her appearance. "Wait, aren't you—"

"Kristen, yeah. Is that a yes?" Kristen could barely disguise her impatience. The agent in her was setting off alarms that were ringing in her ears—she was out dressed like she normally would, her hood was down and she needed cover _now._

Jack let her in, suspicious reading plainly on her face. "You're looking for Alex aren't you? Well, he's not here."

Kristen blinked. "I can come back later if—"

"He's not doing any more of those missions!" Jack said loudly.

Kristen let out a slightly insolent laugh. "I'm not here to recruit for a mission."

Just then, speak of the devil; Alex appeared in the doorway, investigating the visitor and proving that Jack was lying.

By the looks of it, he had just got out from a shower and thrown on loose-fitting jeans and a t-shirt. He took in Jack's stance, and then spotted Kristen, and froze.

"Hi Alex," she gave him a crooked smile.

Jack saw the look on Alex's face, Kristen's smile, and sort of got it.

Alex turned to Jack and said, "Mind if Kristen and I have a chat?"

"Its fine," Jack muttered, and left the room to prepare dinner.

Alex still didn't move from his position next to the door frame. "Do you want to go to the park and talk?"

"Sure," Kristen followed him through the side door, and they walked in silence for the five minutes it took to get to the nearest gardens. She snuck a look at him through the corner of her eye—he had grown, he was now taller than her by two or so inches. His brown hair was streaked through with golden highlights—by the sun, she supposed, and he was more muscular now.

Alex seated himself on a wooden park bench, and she did the same next to him.

He was trying to figure out what to say.

"Why are you back?" he asked.

"I want to catch up with old friends," she answered honestly. It was really the reason why she was back.

Alex glanced at her, trying to read if she was being sarcastic or not. What he saw was genuine.

"For real," a corner of her mouth turned up.

"Where's Shen?" he asked.

"I don't know. Killing his time somewhere down town. I'm supposed to call him with your answer later."

Damn, she was good, Alex thought. With his curiosity, it was obvious that he would ask, 'what answer?' That phrase perfectly set him up for it. Knowing this, he still walked into it.

"Answer for what?" he asked.

She looked him in the eye, and he saw years of experience, experience that she shouldn't have gone through.

"Go with us to the South of France?"

That he had not been expecting. "What for?" he asked.

"Like I said, I want to catch up with you."

"Why should I go with you when you were the one who left me?" his voice was soft, and Kristen could read pain and hurt in it.

She sighed. "If you go with, I'll answer anything you want."

"Anything at all?"

"Alex, it's the _south of France._ Beaches, hot sun, everything that is a perfect vacation. Shouldn't that be temptation enough?"

"I still want my answers though."

"Fine then. Will you come with us?"

"Yes. I will."

"You'll have to tell Jack that."

"So be it."

--

Two days and a couple thousand dollars later, Alex and Kristen were sitting next to each other on a plane to Paris.

"Why are you still in the business? Why didn't you get out?" Alex asked the girl sitting next to him.

Kristen turned her head and looked him square in the eye; he briefly wondered what she had done to give her the paranoid, extremely careful persona that seemed to come naturally to her now. And the fighter's grace that she moved with.

It wasn't easy watching her when she was equipped to survive in a world the two of them had no business in.

"Did you think I could go back to my old life? You know it doesn't work like that. There's never any going back for us. Us two? We know that. You can't, after you've done the deed, made the enemies and pulled the trigger. What no one understands, except us, is that when they pull us into this, they shatter a life."

He understood that.

"I wish I could. But I would miss at least half of the whole school year on assignment; people would start to ask questions. I don't have anyone to live with any more except Shen, and people are strange about that sort of thing. And you know that this life isn't easy on you. People would think that I'm just trouble." Alex gently traced the range of tiny cuts and green bruises on her arm with his finger.

He understood that too.

"A job?" he asked.

She smiled thinly. "I was fourteen when I left England, left you after that one mission." Here he flinched. "Shen and I were in it together, so he went with me. No one would employ a fourteen year old with a junior high education; especially one with no family, just another teenager with me. Now, at sixteen, there is only a handful more people who would hire me. Even with my family's life savings, I've got a long way to go. I want to _do_ things in this life. I want to help people, live out what I want to do…I want to help my country. And of course, money. I have to have that too. It's a job, Alex. A dangerous job, alright, but I'm good at it. It pays."

"You're a patriot," he stated, hating that word.

"If you call it that. There's not many better causes I can believe in."

"Is your government one of them?"

She didn't answer that.

"Did you ever finish your education?" he reverted, wondering if she would ever tell him of her life.

Her real life, not the cock and bull story that she fed others. And not just parts of her real life, all of it. Alex wanted to really understand her.

"I self taught what I needed to know. Shen helped me a lot as well—he went to one of the best international schools in China. And as far as entertainment, I read. A lot."

That was all she said for the rest of the ride.

--

Shen had reserved two rooms in the luxury hotel overlooking the beach—one for he and Alex, and one for Kristen.

Kristen and Alex had gone on ahead and were walking along the beach shore when she suddenly grinned wickedly, and pushed him into the freezing waves. Sputtering, he surfaced, shook his head like a dog and chased after her, bringing her down on top of him in the water.

Laughing, she tugged him out to where Shen stood, lecturing them on the dangers of not using sunscreen and if they didn't take off their clothes soon, it wouldn't just be their bathing suits that would be full of sand.

After a few hours in the sun and sand, they began walking back to the hotel. Kristen's long hair was full of brine and sea water—giving it surprisingly pretty waves. All of them had darkened at least two shades, despite the fact that they all had worn three layers of sunscreen. Shen had made sure of that. He pushed away the memory of her leaning in to smooth out the sunscreen on his face, his shoulders, her bikini top brushing against his chest and back.

Alex tried not to look at the contrast her navy and white bikini made against the golden glow of her body. It had been bad enough that she had looked carefree—well, at least as carefree as anyone in the business could look.

They reached the hotel and entered, and as Shen checked them in again, Alex asked Kristen, "How am I going to pay for this?"

She shrugged. "I'm paying for you."

Shen got the keys and politely turned down an escort to the rooms.

"Why?" he asked, eyes widening at the copious amounts of money the hotel was sure to charge.

"When you reach the stairs, take the left one," the clerk was telling Shen.

Kristen walked off, leaving him behind.

Shen shrugged. "She wants to."

After seeing their rooms—they were huge, beautiful and so _elegant_—Shen took them to dinner at a restaurant that had to be as high class as their hotel. Despite the good food, Alex noticed Kristen didn't eat nearly as much as he did, and the trio merely caught up with each other in news.

Alex learned that she had earned millions just by selling secrets to the US government and going on those missions, as well as what she'd been doing these past two years: sneaking into every major country and carrying out operations. This was the first time she'd asked for a vacation.

Soon they moved back to the hotel.

Alex knocked on the connecting, slightly ajar door lightly a few hours later. Shen had already gone to sleep and it was barely midnight.

He heard a light, "Come in," and so he did, closing the door securely behind him. Kristen had taken a shower but kept the bikini on—why?

She looked as good as she had in the white sand and teal water from where she sat on the bed.

"Shen's already gone to bed," he said, almost roughly. Even though he was used to her body by now, it still disconcerted him.

"I want to talk," she said simply and gestured for him to sit down next to her.

"About?" he noticed goosebumps along her arms.

She didn't answer him for a slight while, and then blew out her breath.

"Before I left the UK," she started. "I said that I had to save myself from crashing too soon."

Alex remembered that day clearly—oh, how many times had he wished he could've run after her, stopped her, asked her what the kiss had meant?

"And before that, I kissed you," she continued. He stiffened. "I know you felt something in that kiss," she was looking at him now with a combination of tender longing, and gentle want overlaid with a glittering need.

"If you did, then why did you leave?" he asked roughly, hoarsely.

"If I asked you to do something for me, I'll answer anything," she pressed on.

"I'll do it," he answered immediately.

"Anything?"

"Anything."

She wondered how she was supposed to word it. "Fuck me, Alex," she said simply.

His brown eyes widened. God, how she could get lost in those eyes. "Kristen! But—out of everything—"

"Alex, you gave me your word," she whispered. "God, Alex, just once. Just tonight. Please…will you?"

"Why?" he asked. Her eyes pleaded with him to not ask too many questions—he thought that if he did, she might break down in tears.

"I'll tell you anything you want to know afterwards."

He sighed. "If I hadn't already promised you, I don't think I would do it."

She smiled, and without any warning kissed him, kissed him hard and deep, like the way she had dreamed of kissing him for more than two years.

Alex let her push the both of them over and kissed her back from his position under her. Kristen tasted sweet, and hot, and he realized that he _liked_ it.

His hands slid down her body, loving the feel of supple muscle underneath creamy skin.

She let out a soft moan—everywhere his hands traced; fire danced beneath his touch and it felt amazing.

Kristen left a trail of wet kisses down his neck and pulled off his T-shirt roughly. She could already feel his arousal and it only served to make her want to rip off all his clothes off _faster. _

Groping for the zipper on his jeans, she unzipped his fly and tore his pants off so they could feel each other even more intimately.

Kristen had already forgotten her previous theory that he was only doing this for her as his warm fingers traced molten patterns down her skin. Alex made a muffled sound low in his throat and undid her bikini top, letting the fabric fall to the ground. Her skin was blazingly warm and as his hands rose to caress her, she lowered her head to his chest and began a series of catlike licks. God, it felt absolutely sinful; her hot mouth sucking on his tender skin and her tongue rasping across it—the feeling was dizzying and he was glad that she was on top. He briefly wondered how it would feel to have her heated mouth around him, her tongue licking him to point of madness…

Without any warning, as Kristen pulled off his boxers, her body shifted, and the feel of splintering heat traveled lower…

Just as suddenly as she had yanked off his pants, she closed around him. Alex made a guttural sound and instinctively bucked his hips. Kristen smiled that kind of smile that let him know she was so turned on by it and sucked, hard.

It took his breath away. He glanced down to see that same smile as she sucked again, and again without stopping.

The bottom row of her teeth scraped against his length and goose bumps erupted along his arms as he tried to stifle his groan. Each hard suck and tender lick brought him closer and closer to the edge and his eyes rolled up in their sockets at the intense pleasure she gave him.

He was this close from going over when she released him.

"You promised," Kristen breathed, sucking on his neck as she returned her attention to him.

Alex remembered as clearly as ever. But no way in hell was he going to do it without protection.

"Here," she tossed him the packet that had lain on top of the table next to the bed. Deftly, he smoothed the condom into place, gently pushed Kristen onto her back and slid off her bikini bottoms.

Alex ran his lips on the smooth skin of her inner thigh, and tested her with slim fingers. What he found there—silky heat, and so ready for him—was almost as good as having her mouth around him. Kristen writhed under his touch, begging and panting for him.

He made good on his promise.

Sinking into her, he let out a strangled moan. When her tightness gave way—it was like nothing he had ever felt before—he needed her, he needed release, needed to be deeper…

Below him she was moving against him frantically, her kisses starting an explosion of heat down his chest, her tongue swirling around his nipple as it hardened…

A sort of primal instinct took over him and he pulled out before pushing back, so deep he couldn't go any further. Kristen's breath whooshed out of her as he did it again, and again…and she panted for him.

Alex didn't realize that underneath him Kristen felt the urge to give everything to him, through the pleasure that was so intense she couldn't think. Somehow, when he wasn't paying attention, she was on top of him, sliding up and down and he groaned at the tightness that engulfed him. They were both caught in a thick haze of intense pleasure, and needed gratification _now._

He pushed up at the same time she pushed down and they continued their increased pace, a dance that only ever grew more intense.

Finally he came, and judging by the ecstasy that colored her scream—muffled by his mouth—she had too. Alex flipped their positions again and pulled out of her so slowly that her eyelids closed and her head dropped backwards onto the pillow. Gently, he lay down next to her and wrapped the blanket tight around them.

_The next morning:_

Alex woke up when Kristen shifted, blearily opening her eyes. He felt kind of nervously apprehensive at how they were going to face each other.

She laid her head on his chest and sighed contently and his arms wrapped around her waist protectively, instinctively. He hadn't expected to feel much—as it was at her request—but it had been amazing, _she_ was amazing and suddenly he knew he wanted to stay with her. Right now, he felt the best he had in forever.

Then he remembered that Shen was extremely intimidating and overprotective of her, and hoped that he wouldn't completely massacre him for sleeping with Kristen.

"What time is it?" said girl asked, gently sucking on his collarbone. Alex resisted the urge to groan, and forced away his arousal as memories of last night began to flow.

"Umm," he twisted in the hotel's bed, "eight twenty six.'

"Good. Shen won't be up till at least eleven."

She kept _licking_ him, and it was horrible to tell her to stop, but he wanted answers. Answers about last night.

Alex flipped her over, pinning her arms behind her back with his own weight so that her face was pressed into the pillow.

"Sorry," he muttered, "but I can't think when you're doing that. You promised you'd answer any questions—so why did you want me—us, to do that?"

Kristen had a grin on her face, despite the compromising position. "You remember Chad?"

"Clearly." Their first kiss together and Alex still thought she had done it to get the gun and revenge.

"I wasn't lying then."

He went still. When he had accused her of precisely what he had thought, she had told him that the gun was just a bonus. And that Kristen had wanted to "do that for awhile now"…

"So, you—" he broke off. The wording wasn't quite right in his mouth, and he wanted to hear it from her.

"I can't say it," she said flatly, words slightly muffled. "I…lo—But what else is it when I care so damn much about you?" Alex sighed and pulled her back upright. She appeared perfectly fine, except for that slight hint on embarrassment in her eyes. He put his hands on either side of her face gently, tilting it and murmured, "I don't need to hear it. Blimey, are you _blushing?_" he noticed that her cheeks were borderline fever warm with faint pink splotches in the middle, and she winced, pulling out of his hold.

"If you want to call it that. Any more questions?" Kristen changed the subject quickly.

Alex just lay back down and pulled her with him, nuzzling her neck gently. He was torn between laughing at her display of emotion—which she obviously didn't do too often—and kissing her, because somehow what she had said was exactly what he had wanted to hear.

She sighed lightly, and resumed her teasing kisses, careful not to meet his eyes.

"Aren't you sore at all?" he asked. "I don't think I was that gentle."

Kristen blinked at him. "Just a little bit. It's fine—I've gone through worse pain."

"I'm sure you have."

She just yawned. Then her face lit up with something, and her lips grinned wickedly.

"What are you thinking about now?"

"I'm thinking," she murmured, "That I want a shower. And not alone."

He grabbed her waist and rolled the two of them out of the rumpled bed. "I'm game."

Kristen ran her lips down his collarbone one more time before letting him pull her to the large, marble bathroom.

Once inside, she closed the door and, upon turning around, was bent over the wide, grey and white swirled counter.

The marble was cold, and goosebumps erupted along her skin as his hot mouth circled one of her nipples. The feeling of the coolness pressed into her back and the hot damp around her breast made her shiver violently.

"Aaaaah-lex," she moaned, drawing out his name and struggling to right herself. "The shower," she reminded him hoarsely.

He liked how she responded to him honestly. It was enticing and a boost to his ego that he could make her feel like that; especially with Kristen being…her.

She pushed the two of them closer to the shower, and twisted the handle inside it to the hottest temperature.

The water started out freezing, effectively turning her nipples hard and getting rid of his arousal. Alex pressed her against the wall, kissing her mouth and tracing patterns against her inner thigh. Moaning, she rocked her hips to feel his fingers with more pressure against her, and was caught unawares when his fingers pressed inside her silky heat and sucked in a breath harshly.

Alex realized that the water was warming up, and scissored his fingers to loosen her walls while sucking on her neck and supporting her against the tile interior of the shower.

Hot blasts of boiling water sprayed their bodies and thoroughly soaked what it could of them. Soon, Kristen's long locks were being tangled with water, something that Alex's own short fair hair would never do.

His fingers thrust faster and faster inside her, and he felt her twist against him, needing release but not knowing how to find it. She whimpered—God—it almost hurt, it felt so good, and she didn't want him to stop, and he didn't…

With a shudder, she came hard, gasping and panting for breath. Wordlessly, she kissed the corner of his mouth as he straightened up, still holding her waist.

"Why didn't you…" she gestured what she didn't say.

Alex cracked half of a smile. "No condoms in the shower love."

Heat pulsed under her skin as she registered his smoky voice and intensity of his eyes.

"Forgot to tell you I'm on birth control," she rested her head on his chest, letting the steaming water rush over them.

He shrugged. "Good to have extra backup." Alex reached for a bottle of shampoo and squeezed out a generous amount.

Kristen looked up and he gently massaged her dark hair, marveling at the contrast between the white foam and her locks. Stepping to the left put her out of the water and he let the shampoo clean her hair without any dilution from the water, then pulled her back into the spray. His right hand's strong, lean fingers combed through her thick hair, brushing out most of the tangles while his other held her back to his chest.

She would have purred if she were a cat. To have him take care of her, love him as tenderly as this was something she hadn't thought could happen. But it did, and she wanted to return the favor.

Her hand full of minty body wash, she rubbed his skin all over, slightly fascinated at the way it foamed on his skin. So fascinated that she didn't notice his hands working soap onto herself.

With a wry smile, she caressed his muscles again before grabbing the shampoo bottle and running her fingers through his hair, gently massaging his temples, putting pressure through her fingers. When she was done with that, he bent his head into the direction of the water and let the foam rinse clean.

Slowly, their shared shower came to an end, Alex turning off the water and wrapping them both in thick white towels.

Kristen blew her hair dry and thought to put on lingerie at the very least and left the bathroom back to the bed, where Alex was, watching television. Pulling the covers over them, she rested her head on his shoulder to watch what he was watching. Without taking his eyes off the series airing, he pulled her onto his lap and she discovered that he'd put on a pair of boxers.

She also realized that it might be the last happiness she'd have. Disconcerted, frowning slightly, Kristen closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

Thinking about how uncertain her life was gave her goose bumps. Alex noticed, and he began rubbing her skin to give her warmth. He was so good to her she could have wailed. If she didn't come back, he wouldn't ever know how or why not, and he would ask himself forever if it was because of him. It was horrible to hurt him like that but she didn't have a choice, especially if she wanted him, but also to shield him from a world he didn't want any part of, a world that he'd rejected years before. A game that she was still playing, about to risk it all.

What was worse—she didn't know if he was still seeing that Sabina girl.

She released her breath, and breathed in his warm scent again. No matter what happened, she wouldn't regret anything. Not when she'd been able to do what she'd always wanted.

--

They had been brought to MI6 France headquarters that looked more like a museum than Royal and General Bank. The wood paneling gave the office a falsely warm air. Mrs. Jones sat behind a cherry wood desk, opposite Shen, Kristen and Alex respectively.

Unbeknownst to her, though, as she questioned the CIA agents about why they were there, Kristen's right hand laid gently on Alex's upper thigh, absently, lightly, tracing patterns on his jeans. He took her hand and squeezed gently.

Giving Jones a cheap excuse about wanting to catch up with old friends—something she knew the woman wouldn't buy, but warned her that Kristen wouldn't be giving up secrets any time so, the trio left.

Afterwards, Shen lead them back to the beach, where they stood there for ten minutes.

"What are we waiting for?" Alex shifted uneasily. He didn't like it here, in another country and in plain view with no cover.

She was completely relaxed. "CIA. They'll be here within five minutes."

True enough, a black, shiny car pulled up and three men dressed in obviously expensive navy suits got out and walked towards them. Two of them grabbed Alex, handcuffing him and forcing him into the sand with one smooth movement.

"What the—" Alex writhed, feeling extremely duped.

Kristen shook her head, stopping him. "I'm sorry Alex, its procedure. Don't worry about it."

The last, sandy brown haired man had stopped a few feet in front of her and she lifted an eyebrow.

"Trace!" there was no mistaking the surprise in her voice, as the two of them veered off to near the car—too far for any of them to hear.

Alex glanced suspiciously at him. There was a familiarity that Kristen greeted him with that made him wary, and—maybe, just a bit jealous. Just a little bit.

"Relax," Shen muttered. "Trace is fine. Colleagues, you know. Trustworthy."

Back with the man himself, Trace held Kristen at arm's length and scrunched his face up. He looked over where the British boy—Rider—knelt. Rider had an air of wariness at this new intruder—and was that possessiveness that he saw?

Trace looked at Kristen for a second and gave a low whistle. "You look like a cat that just got the cream. Getting laid by _Alex Rider_ is pretty flashy, even for you." It was a good thing that the rest of the men were far away enough so that they couldn't hear.

Kristen glanced back at said teen and murmured, "You know how I do Trace. Go for the gold and all. But let him go. He's clean, got nothing on him."

"Someone like him must have something, however small, like a scalpel, on him. Or MI6 might be tracking him."

"I would know if he did wouldn't I? Uncle doesn't need to know how," referring to their country's government with the old nickname 'Uncle Sam'.

Trace nodded. "Seems like I'm keeping more than one secret nowadays anyway."

"Hm. Any word on my car?" Kristen asked.

"They've got it in London. Isn't it supposed to be the guy who has a hot car that he dotes over, and then the sexy girl? Not the girl with a hot car and the sexy guy?"

"Screwing up stereotypes is probably the least of my worries."

"Good point there."

Kristen padded towards Alex, and the men unlocked his handcuffs and moved away respectfully.

"Sorry about that," she murmured, helping him up. "Standard," repeating what she had said earlier.

He nodded, his features softening slightly when he looked at her. "What now?"

"They're just checking on us after MI6's little surprise. They'll be leaving now, I suppose. And we need to get you back to London."

"What about you?" Alex asked. "You and Shen." Something didn't add up, and he vaguely wondered why she was acting differently than the day before.

Her gaze met his straight on. "I'm on assignment."

"Which is?" he was hardly surprised, after everything she'd told him.  
"Take out the Gentleman."

--

Shen stood eye to eye with Alex back in London. Kristen was long since gone. "I know you want to know why she came out of nowhere just for those two days in the south of France with you."

"Why?" Alex asked roughly. He was in no mood for sugarcoating and delays. Not anymore, with Kristen gone, and he left behind with no answers. Again.

Shen hesitated. "You know about the Gentleman, right?"

Alex nodded slowly. The Gentleman had taken out his old friend, Paul Roscoe's father. "Yeah. A damn good assassin that sends flowers to his victims' families."

"A few weeks ago, Kristen got approached by our Head of Department for a mission. It was to take him out of the game after too many of our people got shot down. You know who he is, you know the stakes. It's your life or mine, especially with that target. And she's willing to lay down hers for a government that only ever made her life more dangerous," he said bitterly.

"Patriot," Alex spat out. He had heard of nationalists, and patriots—that was common in Europe—but someone like Kristen? Her government couldn't care less about her individually, just needed someone to get the job done.

She deserved better.

"Naturally, she accepted. And because of the stakes, I'm thinking she's cleaning up whatever the hell she wanted to do in life in case she doesn't come back from this mission."

Alex remembered vividly the night he had entered her room, where her dark, burning eyes had practically begged him to take her, just once. Her hot kisses that trailed down his chest, her slim fingers _everywhere…_

He cared about her too…enough to save her? He wondered. Yeah. Alex did.

Kristen had told him that she loved him, in not so many words perhaps, but he felt their chemistry and the sexual tension between them was undeniable.

Had she seduced him for sex, or for the sex with _him?_

He wouldn't know unless he heard it from her. But he also remembered her warm laugh, slow, shy smile and tender fierce love, and the two amazing days that he'd spent with her. And she was already preparing to move in on the deadliest killer on Earth. Once, he might have gone to Yassen Gregorovitch—the man who had known his father, and the man whom his father had saved for one favor. And he was the most capable person in the world who could have helped him. But Yassen's debt was already repaid—he was dead, by refusing to kill Alex.

For him to find out all the answers, he would have to make sure she succeeded—by following her.

"And?" he asked, wanting to keep Shen talking.

"She found you for a reason," the darker man answered simply. "I don't know what it is—I'm perfectly content keeping it for a surprise—but it's obvious that she doesn't expect to be coming back."

_Doesn't expect to be coming back…_

"You want me to make sure she succeeds."

Shen looked at him again. "Like I said, I don't know what the two of you did—I have a hunch that my guess is right—but it's obvious that you, at least, care about her. I can tell you where she's gone, give you a head start."

"Why don't you go yourself?" Alex challenged.

He grimaced. "CIA is adamant about her going alone. Less to conceal, less chance we'll be found out you see. And because of our bond, they're keeping extra thorough ties on me."

"I'm going." Alex had already made up his mind before Shen had told him the rest. He was going to find out the truth about the woman who had plunged into his life two years ago, disappeared and come back three days ago only to have a one night stand with him.

"Alright. Here's where she is…"

--

Two days later, Alex touched down in Belgium.

--

**OK, so I fused a long since written event with the original chapter, so this is a HUGE chapter. I really want to know what you guys think!**

**Q: Is the sex really necessary?**

**A: I think it is. After they do it (something that Alex obviously values highly), she's gone at the end of this chapter, and it creates more questions for him than Kristen does clearing up the old ones. So, they'll meet again.**

**This story should be wrapping up soon, because I hear that Crocodile Tears is set for a December 1****st**** release date and I already know that this story's plot is nothing like CT is slated to be. **

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	14. Chapter 14

Breathing deeply, Kristen straightened her shoulders and walked into the building. Just an hour before, she had gotten off the plane and landed in Amsterdam—her leader telling her where to go. And she had done so.

Two hours later…

"So, this is what the CIA sends to take care of me? A shrimpy teenager?" the Gentleman sneered at Kristen, who had somehow walked into a trap.

"I'm not that shrimpy, but I'm a teenager," she sneered back, handcuffed and sandwiched between two men.

He scoffed. "You're lucky that I'm busy tonight. Take her away, to warehouse five."

--

Alex gasped, holding the stitch in his side from running. The only reason he could even be there was because Smithers had taken pity on him and gotten his brother, Smuckers, in the CIA, to find out where Kristen was. And with a lot of digging, Smuckers had found out and relayed it to the two Brits. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kristen had gotten herself captured, and he had to dig her out.

He was on the roof, having used a handy gadget Smithers had given him—a cable on his belt that automatically fixed itself to the roof and tugged him upward. Now, he had to break his way into the warehouse and find her, and after that, help her complete her mission without getting either of them killed.

An hour later—

"What the hell are you doing here?" Kristen gave him the best death glare he'd ever seen in his life. Goddamn the woman—even if she was tied up in a building full of guards, outnumbered 55 to 1 she was still fighting.

"Saving your ass," Alex muttered, taking a pocket knife from his pants pockets and sawing through the ropes that bound her to the chair. They fell, but still she sat there, furious.

"You're not fucking supposed to be here—Jesus, how did you—oh I will fucking MURDERISE Shen—DAMMIT Alex!" he'd snaked his arm around her waist, pulled her to him hard and kissed her to shut her up.

"He told me so I could help you, alright?" he murmured when they finally disconnected themselves, but he was still whispering against her lips. Full, slightly swollen lips…he couldn't resist leaning in again, his kiss tender and sweet.

She pulled back faster this time, half-heartedly furious. "Why? I didn't—didn't tell you because I didn't want anyone in danger because of me! Especially not you, dammit!"

Alex met her glare and inwardly winced at her obvious anger. "I still have questions; you're the only one with the answers. And I don't want to have you throw everything away for the CIA."

She started to speak, but didn't. Instead, she gave him a strange look, as if seeing him for the first time, wondering if it was possible that someone cared about her that strongly.

But Kristen didn't voice that. "Do you have a gun?" she asked hoarsely, and cleared her throat.

"Yeah. I took them from the guards I got rid of on my way in," he handed her a silver revolver, which she examined, and took out his own.

"Standard 9mm. It'll do," she commented, and started out the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I still have to carry out my mission," Kristen answered with a touch of amusement. But only just.

"Right, about that," Alex blinked. "I've found out where he is now. In Amsterdam."

"Let's get going then."

--

When they got there, arriving by train an hour later, there were few people running about, as it was already after midnight there. But strangely enough, there was glass shards everywhere as they walked through the quaint cobblestone roads, though the glass shop windows were intact.

"Kristallnacht," Kristen murmured, recalling to Alex's mind a history lesson long ago about the Holocaust atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, when the night Jewish shops' windows were broken and crystalline shards and powder sprinkled everywhere.

Silently, he edged closer to her, unnerved by the darkness and the weight of dreadful history.

Suddenly she stopped and turned to him.

"Alex?" she whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Whatever happens, don't try to save me," she sensed him tense. "Please."

He was about to protest, when she continued, "I've done everything up till now for a reason. If you have to…don't wait for me or anything. Leave me," her eyes locked onto his and wouldn't let go. "Alright?"

Alex was silent. "I can't just _leave_you—"

"You can, and you will."

He acted resigned. "If there's no other way."

"OK." She didn't comment on the obvious loophole that she'd accepted, but instead, trudged on, finger on the trigger of her revolver.

--

A few days later, they were at a club in downtown Amsterdam, the beat of the music loud and pounding through the air. It was only noon, but the club was packed.

"Why are we here again?" Alex asked, almost yelling to make himself heard.

"He supposedly has a job to do here," she yelled back.

The bartenders were starting to give them odd looks as they were the only ones left standing near the counter; everyone else had rushed to the center of the room to dance.

She grabbed his hand, saying, "Let's dance!" before pulling him with her to the pulsing, boiling hot center.

All around them, people were rubbing against each other—it had to be illegal. They would have been having sex if their clothes weren't in the way.

"And I thought it was only America that was sex obsessed," Alex heard Kristen say to him, before being pushed onto him by a thickset man bumping his way through the throng. He caught her, now they were dancing chest to chest.

She didn't move back to her former position, and he didn't retreat as their bodies swayed to the rhythm of the pounding beat. They were grinding now, just as everyone else in the club was, making Alex wonder if she was doing it to blend in or for other reasons. He gritted his teeth as she shifted.

"Keep your eyes open," he heard her say in his ear. As if he could close them with her dancing like that.

A little ways away from the middle of the dance floor, on one of the three stages, a woman came out into the spotlight and the crowd cheered, going absolutely wild. Kristen slowly edged the two of them closer to the stage to see what all the commotion was about, and Alex's eyes widened when he recognized Alyssa Clark, the British pop star that had shot to fame a mere year ago and had released hit after hit. It was nearly impossible to go anywhere in London without hearing her bold voice blasting through the radios. This club had to be much pricier—and classier—than he had originally thought.

Kristen's hand found his and she tugged him forward so they could score prime seats—close enough to see the star's features, yet far enough that they would be unobtrusive. Clark opened her red glossed lips to sing her latest hit, Hot, Hot Love; her voice and the instrumentals blaring as the dance tune caused vibrations through the seats. And she was half-way through the song when two men in the audience stood. One of them held something out—and it was revealed to be a gun as a shot rang out.

The songstress crumpled, her blindingly white dress soaked through with a steadily increasing scarlet pool. Kristen and Alex leaped out of their seats, splitting up without a word to pursue the now solitary fleeing men as shouts were heard and security ran towards the fallen star. Alex disappeared into the throng of dancers even as Kristen crashed out of a side door, skidding on the cobblestones outside the club; ducking behind a beat up Volkswagen to avoid a sudden spray of bullets. Pedestrians were screaming, but neither of the two paid them any attention. She pulled out her own handgun; this was either the Gentleman or an accomplish—the CIA's information had been correct when they told her a job would occur today, and she wasn't interested in hearing out why an 'innocent' man helped one of the deadliest killers in the world take a life.

Kristen loaded her gun and darted out from behind the car, finger squeezing the trigger so that a shot on the leg brought the man down, and another bullet slammed into his head, killing him. She raced over to his body, flipping the dead weight (no pun intended) over with a grunt, scowling darkly when she found that the features from a CIA debriefing meeting didn't match up with the ones in front of her.

And then, her expression changed to one of absolute horror as she realized what that meant: _Alex was chasing the_ _Gentleman._ Shit shit shit shit shit! Kristen spun on her heel, bolting back towards where she had seen him last—the club, knowing fully and bitterly well that they had no means of communication. Hearing gunshots on the other side of the club, she headed that way, heart pounding.

Alex was there, having somehow escaped from the bullets, and hot on the Gentleman's heel.

Fuck! Kristen glanced around quickly, and spotted a blaring, red convertible, sitting there enticingly with no one in sight. She made her choice, darting over to the vehicle's side and checking the wires, pulling the red and green ones out and attempting to bring it to life.

Her hotwiring was successful, and the convertible roared as she hit the pedal hard and followed Alex. Kristen checked her gun, swearing violently when she found that she was _out of bullets._

Today was not going well.

She gained on Alex, he veering to the right so that she could continue chasing the Gentleman. And that put her in a prime position to see what he couldn't see—just ahead, barely two meters, he was pointing his gun at Alex, obviously ready to shoot.

Kristen made her decision within a split second, jamming her shoe onto the gas pedal, keeping it at full speed as she launched herself out of the car, tackling Alex as shots rang out. They slammed against the pavement as the car screeched, crashing into the Gentleman and then continuing to slam into a lamppost.

Alex blearily opened his eyes to see blood dripping over his shirt, and he pulled himself up to kneel, eyes widening in horror as he realized Kristen had _gotten shot for him._

She opened her eyes, the pain from the shot—he realized it was her shoulder now—making them glaze over, but she struggled to pull herself up.

"Is he dead?" she rasped, and he shrugged, paying more attention to ripping open her jacket and examining the wound than the man who had caused it.

"It's—I'm fine, Alex, it's not life threatening," Kristen muttered as he pushed her down again, seeing the wound and breathing a sigh of relief when it wasn't as bad as he had thought. She had gone down at an angle—any straighter and it would have hit her in the heart.

Kristen rose, swaying slightly and taking a few steps to where the body lay. Alex growled, "Stop! Sit against the sidewalk. I can check," and, taking out his own gun, was beside the man in an instant.

Surprisingly enough, the features that met him were relatively normal, but badly beat up from the crash. Alex didn't even scan the rest of his body, because it would be ghastly, but thrust two fingers onto the man's neck, checking for a pulse.

None.

Kristen somehow made it next to him, tightness in her shoulders giving way to relief as she saw it was the same man CIA had told her about.

Alex muttered, "I thought I told you to stay there?" almost angrily. He couldn't be angry at her, because she was the reason he was still unharmed even while she obviously hurt.

Kristen ignored that.

"We've got to get out of here," she murmured, as sirens wailed. "But I—"

He scooped her up, carrying her easily even though she was just about the same height as him, and paying no mind to her protests, began running.

When she spotted a taxi, she said hoarsely, "Flag it down…I've got money," reaching into her jacket pockets to pull out a wad of euros.

Alex set her down, taking the money, and waved for a cab and it slowed. Kristen pulled her jacket over her injury, glad that the blood didn't show through and winced at her movement.

"The airport," Kristen said as she got in and Alex shut the door behind them. Kristen pulled out her phone, cringing at the fresh pain, and Alex hissed.

"Would you let me do something like that next time?" he asked, annoyed.

She shot him a small smile as she punched a few numbers into the keypad, leaning against him lightly.

"Trace?" she asked, and she could feel Alex stiffen. The man said something else, which he couldn't hear.

"Shut up, it wasn't my fault it got so messy," she muttered, annoyed. "Get me two tickets to London, on the next flight out. What? What do you mean you can't? _What?_ Damn security. Okay, fuck it, get me a plane then. Got one? What is it? A Boeing? Fine, alright. Make sure it's cleared with the airport," she snapped her phone shut.

"You're flying us?" Alex asked lowly, skeptically. "I didn't know you knew how to fly a plane."

Kristen shot him a wry grin, slightly ruined by the fact that she was hurting. "Let's just say that the CIA's training is much more…_vigorously thorough_ than MI6's," she muttered back, just as low.

They reached the airport and Alex handed the driver a few bills and let Kristen lean on him for support as they walked into the doors of the airport. A security guard headed their way; Kristen tensed, and then relaxed when she recognized the man.

"Hi Chris," she greeted the man. "Meet Alex, the idiot douchebag that thought he had to take care of me. Alex, Chris. He's part of our people system in Belgium," despite her harsh words, her tone was warm, even a little playful.

Alex took the hand held out by Chris, shaking it.

"Nice to meet you," Chris' eyes asked Kristen why Alex was there.

She ignored that, asking, "Right, where's the plane?"

"Follow me," Chris lead the way through the back way all security used. Alex and Kristen dropped behind slightly, and he asked, "Are you alright?"

She blinked, eyes not meeting his. "I'm fine," she murmured, but winced when she moved her arm slightly.

"You're not," he accused, his tone firm but soft.

"I can't do anything about it now," she muttered. "So I'm fine."

He rolled his eyes at her pigheadedness but continued to walk beside her.

"How are you going to fly the plane like that?"

"It's only an hour and twenty minutes to London Alex," she murmured. "Don't worry about me."

He didn't respond as they were led to the aircraft, Kristen given a pair of headphones for the piloting seat.

It was ten minutes till take off.

They sat down into the pilot and co-pilot seats, feeling the eerie aura. Trace had gotten them a relatively easy to fly aircraft, but it was huge, and empty.

Finally, the time came. Alex listened to Kristen communicate with the control tower, as they were cleared for takeoff and she maneuvered them onto the runway.

Alex squeezed his eyes shut when he heard the engines whine, the familiar roar and the incredible speed as she took the plane forward and then—up.

He opened his eyes again, watching her look of concentration as she guided the plane upwards, his ears popping. Jesus, how did she _do_ that? How did she do anything—even just today, that dancing, hotwiring a car, taking a bullet for him, and now she was _flying_ them back to London.

Sabina who?

Alex settled back against the seat and let her work, and somehow fell asleep.

--

He woke up an hour later, finding Kristen ten minutes from landing, listening as she was cleared by air traffic control to continue. How he had fallen asleep he didn't know; watching her now was complete torture—could she really do this?—and he looked away.

The minutes trickled by agonizingly slowly, and Alex could feel the plane beginning its descent.

Below, the buildings and cars seemed to blow up in size, becoming their normal heights as Kristen navigated the plane to hit the ground, speed rushing them at hundreds of miles per hour on the runway as she hit the brakes.

As they slowed to a stop, she sighed and fell back against the seat, exhausted. Alex smiled as she took the controls again and guided them into a gate, directed by the ground personnel.

And finally, it was all over. Kristen took off her headphones and tossed them onto the controls, shaking slightly with the effort the journey had cost her.

Alex parted her jacked again to examine the bullet wound. It had long since stopped bleeding, but he needed to get her to a hospital as soon as possible.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

He didn't answer, but pulled her into a hug.

"Screw the CIA, I'm getting you to a hospital," he murmured.

"I'm alright, really," Kristen answered.

Alex gave her a disbelieving look. "Don't pull that on me. We're going. Come on, let's get out of here," he gently tugged her upwards, stretching slightly, and she followed him off the plane.

Thirty minutes later, they were out of the airport and in a cab, Alex telling the driver to get them to the nearest hospital. Kristen was omitted and brought into surgery.

And so here he was, sitting in the waiting room until he could go into her room. He absently played with her phone, flipping it open and closed, until it rang.

Alex froze and checked who it was, and came across an unfamiliar number.

He opened it anyways and waited for someone to talk.

"Where are you?" an older, male voice asked.

"This isn't Kristen," Alex replied. "She's having surgery at the moment. Who're you?"

"Alex Rider, we are not pleased that you followed her onto her assignment. She could have died, and the mission failed."

"Like you care if she would live or not."

"We will be there shortly."

The call ended.

Alex let out a sigh and hoped that she was alright.

--

Thirty minutes later, he rushed into her room as a nurse came to inform him that she was out of surgery.

He saw her sitting up, tired but otherwise fine and a thick bandage patch around her shoulder.

Alex sighed with relief. "How're you feeling?" he asked.

"Better than fine," she smiled at him.

"The CIA is supposed to get here soon," he said. "They called."

Her eyes narrowed. "Did they say anything to you?"

"The usual 'don't mess in our business' crap," Alex said dismissively. "It doesn't matter."

She cracked a smile. "Alex, guess what?"

"What?" he asked, noticing how lovely she looked when her happiness shone through.

"I can say it!" Kristen answered. "I love you."

**The end.**

**But not really.**

**THERE'S AN EPILOGUE COMING UP!**

--

**Indeed an epilogue is coming. Stay tuned for it! And yes, with the end of the epilogue comes the real final ending of this story. I can't wait for it! What do you think?**

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	15. Epilogue

**This Epilogue is dedicated to Wolfmonster, for easily the best review I, and anyone, could or have received, and to SheWeapon1, for consistently being the only reviewer, and for the encouragement that's made it possible to finish ****All Isn't Well.**

Kristen made her way through London's Heathrow airport, slinging her small duffel over her shoulder and made for a cab.

"Chesham Place," Kristen told the driver, and got in. They sped off.

It was three years since that day in the small London hospital. Kristen had just gotten off a flight back to here as she finished her latest mission; paying a cool five million. Now, at 19, she reminisced.

Kristen had gotten herself a flat here in London, in Chesham Place, paying twenty-seven million US dollars for it and selling her half of the flat she had shared with Shen in Washington back to him. Twenty seven million was nothing for her, she acknowledged, as the cab sped off through the rush hour traffic

She still worked for the CIA, but London was her home base now. It was sometimes irritating for her director, she knew, but he put up with it as she was the best anyone could have; even MI6 had tried to recruit her when she went back to London. Kristen had turned them down, though, because at heart she was pure American.

Though, now, living in London, she kept in touch with her old friends Eagle, Hawk, Raptor and Falcon. They were part of the SS now, and she ran into them sometimes.

After her appearance in London, that day, the CIA had gotten hold of her and gruffly said that she'd done well, even with Rider 'getting in the way'. That was the highest praise any agent could have wrung from her boss, and Kristen had lit up in a rare smile.

Shen was still working for the CIA too, and he lived with her whenever he could; half of the year. Even though she was legally an adult, he transferred to London as often as an assignment called for it to work with her. They were still close.

As a matter of fact, he was at her flat now.

Twenty minutes later, she got out of the cab and paid the driver with a wad of pounds. While she wasn't careless with her money, Kristen did make a point to be more generous whenever she could.

She headed into the building, the clerk giving her a smile, and she scanned her card past security, and into the elevator, where she checked herself out in the mirror.

The latest mission the CIA had sent her on had been easier than usual, simply sent to South America to gather information on the drug cartels there, and she didn't have any extra injuries on her body at the moment.

The elevator dinged as it reached her floor.

Kristen got out, and scanned her card again to secure entry into the flat, and closed the door behind her, breathing a sigh of relief.

She made her way into her room, tossing the duffel aside and changing into dark jeans and a blazing scarlet halter top, checking if there were any injuries she needed to cover.

Such was the life of an agent.

"Hey hey hey," a voice sounded from the doorway. "Look whose back."

Kristen turned around and smiled. "Thanks for cleaning the place Shen," she reached over to give him a hug. "Seems like I'm never home enough to do that anymore."

"Yeah, look at me, former Triad leader reduced to maid," he scoffed, twirling her around. "By the way, remind me, how did Feng ever stop trying to catch us?"

"The CIA sent me to cut a deal with him," Kristen rolled her eyes, because he made her tell the story all too often. "And it was going well, before one of his men tried to grope me, and _yes_ I shot them."

He laughed. "Yes, I remember now. And stop your jittering. I should attempt to delay you from running off to see your precious boyfriend. I still don't see why you bought him a Mustang after he got accepted to Oxford," he grumbled. "What do I get then?"

"You make your own money," she laughed, releasing him. "He's home then?"

"Yeah he is. Nice timing, he got back day before yesterday."

"Thanks," she was itching to be off. "My car?"

Shen rolled his eyes. "Refueled it for you yesterday, after you messaged me that you'd be home early. Trace wants to ask if he wants to borrow it, by the way." A text came in, and he brightened. "That must be from Tessa!"

Kristen heaved a mock-sigh. "Fuck no he can't. He has to earn the priviledge to first. Ah, you're still a player. Some things never change. If you're going to hook up with women, rent a damn hotel room! I'm not going to have them in here," she stuck her tongue out. "Love you," she grinned, rushing off.

This time, the elevator took her to the basement, where she pressed a button on her keys, and an unlocking sound and flash of lights answered. Grinning madly again, she raced off to her car, and ran her hand over the hood, sighing.

Shen had told her that she was like a guy, the way she obsessed over her car, but she didn't care. The bright yellow Lamborghini was her baby, and only Shen or Alex were allowed to drive it. Even CIA employees weren't allowed to.

She got in, bringing the car to life, smiling at the answering purr of the engine, and brought the car smoothly out of the garage and out into darkening London. Rush hour had lessened now, and ten minutes later found her in front of Alex's house. Kristen slammed the car's door shut and got out, locking the car and smoothing down her clothes nervously as she went up the front steps.

It brought back memories, for sure, that movement, and she smiled again. Kristen pulled out her phone, dialing in a number she knew by heart, and waited.

"Kristen?" a familiar, boyish voice asked.

"Three guesses where I am right now," she said.

"Columbia."

"Nope."

"Europe?"

"Come on, you've got to be more specific than that. I know you got full marks on your Geography exam a few years ago, so you have no excuse."

"Fuck, London?" his voice rose slightly, excitedly.

"Try your doorstep," Kristen grinned broadly and hung up as the door flew open.

Alex stood there for a few seconds in shock, and then lunged forward and pulled her into a tight embrace. In those three years, he had grown slightly again, become more muscular and had grown out his hair. Kristen figured that he didn't have any shortage of girls waiting on his every word; something that had been confirmed when she had visited at Oxford once.

"_Alex, is that your girlfriend?" A blonde asked. Later Kristen had learned she was out of one of the most prestigious British noble families. _

"_Yeah," he had answered, putting his arm around Kristen's mid back, so his hand cupped her waist. _

_His friends whistled, and hooted. "Ace! Where'd you go to chat up a bird like that?"_

"_I might be a __**bird like that**__ but I've got ears you know," Kristen had answered dryly. Must have been the agent self control in her that had told her not to beat the shit of the bloke._

_Alex had laughed. "London."_

"_What pub?"_

"_At a bank, actually," Kristen had smirked. "It's too bad that it's only me where I come from."_

"_Bloody hell mate, American too?"_

"_Your accent's charming," one of his friends had said, throwing in a smile with it._

"_Same to you," she'd answered._

Afterward, Alex had told her that none of them had believed she was his girlfriend, thinking he'd gotten the picture off the internet or something.

"Missed you," Alex muttered.

She laughed softly. "Me too, baby, me too."

He looked her in the eyes. "Haven't felt this emotional since you paid off MI6. What took you so long?"

MI6 had come recruiting for Alex again, thinking that it was high time they got an agent like Kristen into their service. And Alex was better than she was. But by that time, Jack had gotten a renewed visa, and they were simply forcing him into it. Kristen had gone to their office to ask what she would have to do for Alex to be able to walk away free. The original reply had been for her to transfer to MI6, to which she had replied that the Americans would be furious. She offered two million US dollars.

They took it.

"Had to earn my money, didn't I?" she replied, and he grinned again, before catching her lips in a kiss.

Alex had his normal life again. Kristen was doing what she loved, surrounded by friends and colleagues. Both of them were on track for long, happy lives.

And they had each other.

All is well.

--

**IT'S DONE. OKAY, WAIT, MAYBE NOT. LOL. **

**REASON WHY: If you want to know what happens to a character, or a scene that I mentioned in the Epilogue without much detail, LET ME KNOW IN THE REVIEWS. I WILL UPDATE WITH ANOTHER CHAPTER OF THOSE SCENES, AND THAT WILL BE THE TRUE END.**

**So it's pretty much over!!!!**

**Review replies:**

**xXxSmidgexXx: Ah well, k it's the end of the story, doesn't matter anymore!**

**Wolfmonster: Seriously hands down the best review I've ever received. Wish I had a reader like you on every of my stories! : ) I must agree, I'm definetly not a fan of slash as well, though if it's done well it's okay. Ah, the Gentleman, I'd been trying to work him into this story for FOREVER, just never felt right! Oh the mission didn't fail, she did successfully kill him. You'll like that in this chapter Alex gets his normal life back then, as Kristen pays MI6 off! The two years idea took me awhile to get used to, but in the end I liked it enough!**** I must agree, CIA for the win, and in the two years she was gone, guess she picked up a lot of talents (flying, hotwiring a car…)** **And you're right, Kristen didn't plan to get herself killed for Alex, she was just trying to get him out of the way and accidentally got shot. Ah, the mushy endings, it will somehow happen with each of my fics, must be the dreamer in me. Kristen isn't meant to be a Mary-Sue, yeah, she's dark and twisted and cares a lot more about her friends than an agent should, and she's made her enemies too. I'm glad you like Shen! (Originally he was meant to be evil, can you imagine?) For one-shots or sequels, I probably will update if people want to know what happens to other people, and they'll probably have Kristen and Alex cameo'ing in them!**

**OKAY, FOR THE AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

_**To my readers—**_

**Like I said above, if anyone wants to find out what happened to other characters, or a scene that I mentioned in the Epilogue but didn't go into much detail about, now's your chance! Tell me in a review and I will write it and update ****All Isn't Well**** in it's true, final chapter! DEADLINE IS JULY 10TH!  
**

**This is (was?) my favorite fic to write because the words and ideas just came so easily. I'm still amazed that it turned out this well, because I can't plan a story for shit, and I made it up as I went along. Granted, it's only 15 chapters, but still. Seems my shortest fics are my favorite!**

**Check out my site for more info about ****All Isn't Well****!**

_**Love goes out to:**_

Abe Rider Short, AC a Reader and Mellorocx, Alvineju of Baron, blackruby873, Calla Argenue, ffhoupt, Independent-Chick-92, kiss rocks god of thunder, KlutzyQT, KonohaShinobi, Latina16, pumpernickle93, SheWeapon1, blackladyg, claireroxx101, Eric J. Alderson, Keladry0alanna, mOOnlite-duskk, NienkevH, Rath141419, TGIF but only once a week, xXxSmidgexXx, ZizzyBelle.

**Or anyone whose read a chapter of All Isn't Well, for sticking with me.**

**Q&A: **

**Q: Sequel?**

**A: Probably not! The Alex Rider series is coming to an end soon, and I've got no plans for a sequel as the next update for special scenes will probably cover that. However, I'm fiddling with the idea of a young Yassen fic…which will be hard to write before Mr. Horowitz finishes his book. Maybe…**

**Q: Any other Fanfiction in the works for you?**

**A: After I finish my current ones, I think I'll be heading over to Fictionpress. I still love Fanfiction, but now, I have a lot of plot ideas that will fit more easily with my own characters. Follow me over there if you want!**

**Again, I want to thank every reader, every review and everyone devoted enough to continue with me on the journey of completing All Isn't Well. If you like my work (can't imagine why!) you can spot me finishing the rest of my Fanfiction and hopefully sometime soon on FictionPress under the same name. I hope you have all enjoyed reading ****All Isn't Well****—I still want to know what you think about the last chapter though! Leave some love!**


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